


The Measure Of Decency

by apfelgranate



Series: Line of Durin Bingo Card Shenanigans [5]
Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, F/M, M/M, Multi, Pegging, Sibling Incest, Threesome, Weird Elven Sexual Mores, a shitton of internalized bullshit, also weird dwarven sexual mores
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-08 23:01:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apfelgranate/pseuds/apfelgranate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kings must be dutiful creatures. Marriage is a pact, an honour, an obligation, and it affects far more than just the wedded pair. If there is a lesson here, it is that sometimes it takes far more strength to be selfish than selfless. (Set about ten months after 'Degrees of Familiarity'.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Two Ravens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her name is Skafid, and she is Fíli's bride-to-be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to [thatsleon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsleon/pseuds/thatsleon) for the quick beta. The second chapter is pretty much finished as well, but I'll post it in about a week or so, to give myself some time to get somewhere with the third one. (Also, the working title for this has been 'the clusterfuck', in all-caps. So.)

 

Her name is Skafid. Her aptitude for metalwork is extensive, and while she has rarely held an axe or sword, she has grown skilled and broad-shouldered in a forge, hammer and anvil as familiar to her as her parents. She has red-golden hair and an impressive silken beard, threaded with delicately wrought silver beads. She is Dain's niece and a good match.

The best match, in fact.

"I can't decline," Fíli insists desperately, "Kíli, you _know_ I can't."

"Will you _shut up_ ," Kíli hisses. His teeth scrape over Fíli's jugular, roughly, and the sensation has long since tipped from pleasurable to painful. Fíli grabs the front of his brother's jerkin and shoves him away.

"Will you listen to me!"

They are both panting for breath, harsh gasps for air like they have been sparring, or truly fighting, and Fíli hates the thought that _this_ could drive such a wedge between them.

"It's no use getting jealous, brother," he says, as gently as he is able, despite the hammering of his pulse. "I need to produce an heir, nothing more."

"Thorin never married."

"Yes, because of us. And if I don't, _you_ are the one who will have to father children!"

"You're not even a hundred!"

"I'm the heir!"

Kíli's mouth opens but no sound escapes and his jaw clenches shut with the sound of teeth grinding.

"It won't mean anything, Kíli," Fíli says, helplessness and frustration with his brother's stubborness stiffening his limbs. "Besides, you didn't mind it when I laid with Tauriel without you, did you?"

"Tauriel's different," mutters Kíli sullenly, his eyes cast down, his cheeks ruddy with blood, and Fíli's teeth grit with a sudden, fathomless anger.

"What, because you love her?" he spits, viciously, because sometimes when Kíli talks about her a softness steals into his eyes and into the way his tongue curls around her name that has Fíli's throat tightening (and oh, sometimes he thinks of her hands and her dark eyes and her voice in his ear and his throat grows so narrow it hurts to swallow), and Kíli goes deathly still.

There is a moment, before Kíli's face twists up into something like a grimace, his eyes wide and so very young, where Fíli thinks he will deny it, but that moment is fleeting. It feels like the ground has been torn from beneath his feet and even his brother's hands cannot catch him. Kíli's hands skitter over his cheeks, his neck, chest, erratic as though he cannot decide where to settle yet desperate to hold on, until he melts against Fíli, the length of his body like a brand and Fíli cannot breathe under it—he cannot—but he cannot deny Kíli's mouth either.

"Fíli," Kíli whispers, a plea and a curse at once, "You're my, mine—brother, _atamanel_ , please—"

Fíli wrenches himself away, because he cannot breathe, because he has always been the only one to possess Kíli's love and this thing which is now choking him is too immense to be jealousy.

" _Fíli_ ," Kíli repeats. This time it is only a plea. Fíli has never felt so cold.

\--o--

Two ravens find their way to Mirkwood in the weeks after. The first one bears the seal of the King Under the Mountain and announces the upcoming wedding of Fíli, son of Dís and heir to the throne to one Skafid, daughter of Skirfir, and invites the attendance of an elven ambassador to the occasion.

The second one is meant for Tauriel only and carries a message of two words; two small words that have her insides twisting in dread and anticipation with their urgency.

_Please come._

"Would you like the honour of representing the court?" Thranduil asks her, the first raven perched on his shoulder. "The groom is a good friend of yours, after all."

"I'd like that," she answers, "if my absence would not be too much of a burden?"

"That depends entirely on your choice for a deputy."

"I would choose Lia. She has proven to be quite capable. Who else would you have travel to Erebor?"

Thranduil does not reply to this for a good while, choosing instead to pace the length of his desk, his fingers laced behind his back. At last, as Tauriel is growing restless with the silence, he settles into his chair with a small sigh and regards her with dark, old eyes.

"Do you believe me to be powerful?" he asks. Tauriel does not know what to say, surprised both by the non-sequitur and the question itself.

"You are king," she finally states. He smirks, quick and skewed.

"Spoken like a true politician," he says and rises again. "The truth is, I am in something of a quandary and I would relieve myself of it by sending you to Erebor."

"But—why?"

"Because my court does not appreciate their king 'bowing' to a prince. Because there are more than a few who believe we have made too many concessions in the peace and trade treaties, and they do not wish to honour the dwarves more than neccessary. But declining the invitation would pose an insult to Erebor, which is why I wish for you to go. You are neither of high blood nor of the court but from what I am told, the dwarves consider you something of an ambassador."

Tauriel swallows against the bitterness rising in her throat.

"Are you saying the court thinks me too low to consider my presence acknowledgment?"

Thranduil smiles gently. "Yes. Though somehow, they don't appear to mind the dwarves thinking themselves acknowledged by your attendance."

\--o--

"I don't know if I can do it," Fíli whispers, eyes closed as his mother cards her fingers through his loose hair.

"If you can do what?" she asks, softly, and takes up a comb.

"I don't know if I can be king," he admits, simultaneously relieved to give voice to his fear and yet frightened of her response. He has lived with the burden of the crown he is to inherit since birth, but even when he had disappointed Thorin to the point of being ignored, he had never doubted himself as he does now, when he is to _marry_ , of all things.

"Fíli," Dís murmurs, tugging at his shoulder. " _Kidhuz_ , look at me."

He does, but with great hesitation. She smiles gently.

"Do you believe yourself to be not strong enough?"

"I… perhaps."

"It is true, a good king needs many strengths, and battle-courage is only one of them. But you have many years yet, to learn those strengths. Despite what many like to believe, no one is born a king."

Fíli frowns but her words lend him warmth and light against the shadows darkening his mind, though not enough by far to drive away the cold that has grown in his heart since he and Kíli fought.

"Not even Thorin?" he finds himself asking, desperate to distract himself from the way his stomach twists whenever he thinks of his brother's wide, guilty eyes. Something wanes in her face then, her eyes darkening slightly, not quite like sadness.

"No, not even your uncle was born kingly," she says, but she is not looking at him. Fíli follows her gaze to find Thorin watching them. His heartbeat quickens with trepidation, yet his uncle does not appear to have heard his admission of weakness, judging from the wry smile he sends Dís.

"Are you spreading tales of my incompetence?" he asks as he ambles closer, his arms loosely crossed.

"I speak nothing but the truth, brother," Dís replies with a huff of air that is nigh a chuckle. She parts Fíli's hair and abandons the comb to begin braiding it. "Fíli is doubting his ability to be king."

"Mother!"

"Hush, _kidhuz_." Fíli swallows, raw with shame, but he meets his uncle's gaze without wavering. Yet Thorin sports a strange, unfamiliar expression instead of the expected disappointment; his eyes flit, and his fingers clench where they rest in the curve of his elbows. He seems almost nervous.

"You will not be king for a great number of years," he says. "I do not intend to leave for the Halls of Waiting just yet."

"Those were my words as well," Dís mutters, sounding amused. Thorin looks at her and something very old shifts behind his eyes, a weariness Fíli has rarely seen. His uncle steps closer, and when he speaks his voice is quiet.

"A king is not always strong, Fíli. To be king, it sometimes means presenting a… an image of a king, as someone whom people would gladly follow. There is no place for selfishness in this; your people must be your first concern in everything. But there are we—transgressions a king might allow himself, as long as he does not let them define the way his people perceive him."

Fíli regards his uncle with confusion, though his heart is already sinking. His love for Kíli is a selfish, greedy, all-consuming thing, and not an emotion a king—or anyone, for that matter, but _especially_ a king—should harbour, even he can admit that much to himself, painful though it is.

"What do you mean, when you say 'transgressions'?" he asks. Thorin's ears go red, and he shoots Dís a helpless glance. She lets out a breath like a sigh and pats Fíli's shoulder.

"He means, that as long as you keep it behind closed doors, you are free to take other lovers. As is Skafid, for that matter."

Fíli's cheeks burn and he looks down at his lap in a futile attempt to hide his embarrassment, and most of all, the guilt he is sure would be visible in his expression. _Do they know?_ he wonders frantically. _They can't, Uncle would have lost it. He would have killed me; and then tried to kill Tauriel, most likely_.

They fall into an awkward silence until Dís tugs at Fíli's finished braids and ruffles his hair, which Thorin appears to take as his cue to clap a hand down onto Fíli's shoulder in what is meant to be a reassuring touch, but instead the weight of it bows Fíli's back even further, and he flees as soon as he is able.

\--o--

There are garments to be sewn since Tauriel's wardrobe yields nothing remotely suitable for such an occasion as opulent as a royal wedding. It feels strange, to consider a dress only for its splendor and not its comfort, or for how many knives could be concealed within its folds. As the tailor measures her, she finds her mind drifting, thoughts drawn fast to the mountain across the plain.

When she had asked the raven who had sent the message, it had merely croaked, "The young prince, Milady," and said no more. And although the prospect of spending a week under open, moon-lit skies fills her with joy, she grows increasingly concerned as the date of her departure approaches.

 _Fíli will marry_ , she thinks. _As is expected of the heir_.

In an almost detached fashion, she wonders how much a wife would complicate sneaking off with Fíli to have a tumble, until she realises with a twinge of guilt that she is considering Skafid like she would an obstacle, like a block in the road and not like a person.

She has no right to his bed and neither does Kíli, no matter what they did in the past, and if Fíli chooses to share it with someone else that is his right. Yet, it seems unlikely to her that he would marry someone without even telling her. That he would voluntarily marry someone else, when he looks at his brother like he hung the moon.

 _I have no right to his bed_ , she reminds herself sternly.

But the entire kingdom seems to have a right to it, for he will be king and there are things a king must do. The thought galls her, and she shudders inwardly.

"Hold out your arms, please," the tailor says, jerking her from her musings, and she complies with a sigh.

\--o--

"I come bearing tidings from Lady Tauriel," the raven declares as it settles onto Kíli's shoulder. Then, puffing out its chest, it continues, " _I will be there_ ; that is her message."

Kíli's heart trips and races at the words. He has barely spoken to his brother in the past weeks, and an intense longing has been eating him up from the inside ever since, the kind off which he had thought to have rid himself since their first proper, fateful visit to Mirkwood.

"Thank you," he tells the raven, and watches with trembling fingers as it flies off to its homestead.

\--o--

The open sky seizes Tauriel's heart as surely as it has every time she has left Mirkwood at her back, something reckless and jubilant wakening inside her that cannot be quelled by even the worry which the sight of the Lonely Mountain at the horizon begets.

She wants to ride her horse to the point of exhaustion, she wants to draw out the journey for as long as possible, and she can do neither of these because the date for the wedding is set and she has been given a pair of guards, two stern-faced elves she does not know, who might set a brisk pace but would not be willing to race their steeds for the mere joy of splitting the whipping wind with their bodies. She would consider the entourage an insult to her capabilities, if she were riding as Captain of the guard, but she is not; she rides as envoy of king Thranduil and as such, there are expectations to meet. Nevertheless, she is free to rid herself of their company once she reaches Erebor, and she is grateful for that level of freedom.

The miles to the Lonely Mountain dwindle beneath the steadily moving hooves of their horses by day, and at night she beds down, watching the stars and moon pass overhead, her memories driving her pulse to insomnia-heights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _atamanel_ = (the) breath of all breaths  
>  _khiduz_ = gold


	2. A Talk With A Toymaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tauriel learns something important about the way dwarves view sex.

Tauriel stops off at an inn in Dale the day before she is due to arrive in Erebor and orders her guards to return to Mirkwood, unwilling to be forced to sneak about under their noses as well while she stays in the dwarven kingdom. Furthermore, she needs to exchange her dirtied travel clothes for the more regal cloak and dress of an ambassador.

After securing her room, she settles into a corner of the barroom with a tankard of strong dark ale, a piece of oven-warm bread and a cut of smoked ham. Drinking on her own has never quite suited her, but with the worry of not knowing what will await her in the Lonely Mountain a constant niggle at the back of her mind, she relishes the merry-making qualities of the ale.

As dusk bleeds the sky outside red, a dwarf approaches her table, tankard in his hand.

"Bofur, at your service," he introduces himself and bows with an exaggerated flourish of his hat, smiling broadly. His hair is done up in two braids that seem to defy gravity, curving upwards. He wears a fine coat which would give him an air of dignity if it did not clash so with the plain, worn and frankly ridiculous hat.

She remembers the hat.

"Tauriel, at yours," she replies and adds, "I know you. You were one of Thorin Oakenshield's Company, were you not?"

"Indeed. And you are the Captain of Mirkwood's guard, if I'm not mistaken. Although you don't seem to do much captaining or guarding at the moment." He grins, quite aware of his cheek, and a similar curve tugs at Tauriel's mouth despite her best intentions.

"And what business do you have with your former warden, Master dwarf?"

"I was looking for a drinking companion," he says, holding out his tankard. She gives him a skewed look, to which he only shrugs.

"I've never been any good at holding grudges," he explains, "And you look like you could weave a tale or two."

Tauriel hesitates, but only for a moment. She has never liked to drink on her own.

\--o--

They both do a bit of weaving, in the following hour. Bofur tells her anecdotes from the Company's journey to the Lonely Mountain, and of the bad luck that seemed to follow them, although from his tales it sounds like they found enough laughter along the way. In turn she tells him of being caught unawares by spiders while on a hunt with the king's son, of too many excursions into the depths of Mirkwood that left her dirtied and scratched and eager to repeat them in her younger years.

"You're an adventurous sort, aren't you," he says with a crooked smile.

"And you're not? A toymaker, running nigh a thousand miles to fight a dragon?"

"Well, the reward might have been part of the incentive."

Tauriel chuckles slightly and they lull into companionable silence, taking occasional sips from their tankards. The ale is warming her from the inside out, but with the quiet her mind grows restless again, thinking of the second raven's message, and the helplessly fond way Fíli and Kíli look at each other sometimes.

"Do dwarves—are marriages for political reasons common?" she asks after a while, before she can think better of it. Bofur shrugs.

"Among the nobs, certainly."

"The nobs?"

"The nobles. Royalty, and their lot." He wrinkles his nose, in a way that she would describe as cute if she were a bit drunker, as he finds his tankard empty, then pushes it away.

"You look surprised," he comments. Tauriel shrugs as well.

"Marriage in itself is not very common amongst elves," she explains, "In part because to lie with someone is to marry them." Bofur's eyebrows rise.

"I'd heard about that," he says quietly, with an air of confidentiality. "And I've wondered since if that is really true."

"What do you mean?"

"Do elves truly never have bodily relations outside of marriage?" he elaborates and Tauriel levels a long look at him over her tankard.

"What gave you that thought?"

"I find it difficult to believe that none of your kind ever get the urge to lie with more than one person. Or to lie with someone without shackling yourself to that person forever." He's smiling wickedly, his cheeks flushed red with blood, something warm and lazy in his eyes. The small triangle of skin visible over his collarbone is ruddy as well, and Tauriel's gaze gets caught there.

"Well…" She draws the word out, thinking of the broad bed in her room. "Only certain… activities are seen as real bodily relations. Although there are many things one can do with one another that I would call bodily."

Bofur leans forward. "So… if you wanted to kiss me, you could do it?"

\--o--

Kissing Bofur is both strangely familiar and yet new. His beard is surprisingly soft and his enthusiasm reminds her of Fíli and Kíli after a day of being able to look but not touch, although it is far less messy and tempered with a languidness that she suspects comes from a great deal of experience, a patience that lies in knowing to savour the slow burn of rising desire.

His legs curl over her hips and his arms around her neck when she lifts him up and lets the oaken door take their combined weight, a gruff laugh escaping his lips.

"It's fortunate I'm not afraid of heights," he says, drawing a surprised laugh from her, and then they do not speak again for a few more minutes. After that, they sit side by side on the edge of Tauriel's bed, Bofur's feet dangling several good inches above the ground, and take off their boots.

"I assume you cannot take me inside you?" he asks as he fiddles with his belt.

"Anything that could lead to children is not possible, but everything else…" She trails off, unsure of what she wants yet. His thighs were warm and strong wrapped around her, but she hesitates to suggest it outright, fearing he will ask her just why she travels with such gear; and she is not too keen to admit that she intends to spend the coming weeks' nights with the legs of two ( _Perhaps three_ , a hopeful little thought whispers) different men around her waist.

Bofur makes an inordinately thoughtful noise and looks up at her with an impish grin. "Do you prefer the rear door, then?"

"Not particularly," she replies with a chuckle and a shake of her head, "but I'd enjoy your mouth, and your fingers."

"M-mh." His shoulder bumps against her upper arm as he shrugs out of his coat. "What else would you enjoy, Captain?"

"Are you going to take off your hat at some point?" she asks instead, and he clutches at it with an expression of shocked outrage that seems to be only partly theatrics. She cannot smother her laughter and she grabs him, draws him in until he swings his leg over hers to straddle her lap.

"I like this," she whispers, ducked down and close so they are sharing air, "and I'd like to get my fingers inside you, and—" She breaks off when Bofur suddenly looks like all the air left his lungs, face going violently ruddy.

"That's rather—intimate," he murmurs, yet his eyes are bright with something that Tauriel is fairly certain is gleeful anticipation. She bends to the side to press her lips against his ear.

"Would you enjoy that? If I spread you open with my fingers and had you on your back?"

A slight tremor runs through him, or perhaps it is her own, but regardless his hand rises to curl about her neck and draw her into another kiss.

"You're very bold, you know," he says afterwards.

"I take it that means yes?"

"That's exactly what it means. Though be gentle about it, I haven't been taken like that in a while."

Tauriel only has blade oil, but Bofur finds it satisfactory. (His exact words are, "I'll be damned if I have to leave this room and sweet-talk the cook just to get some oil; it'll do.") She opens him slowly, carefully, like he asked and her skin grows warm with exitement, her slick wetting the leather of the harness. Bofur sighs and whispers encouragements throughout, _There, that's good_ , _a little more, little deeper_ , until he declares himself prepared, dragging her close, and she is just as eager to sink into him.

But then, kneeling between his spread legs, his inner thighs shiny with oil, with one hand on the joint of his hip and the other curled about the wood, she is seized by the awful, biting cold of Tuviel's and Thorin's voices, _shameful_ and _defilement_ and _slattern_ a roaring maelstrom that freezes her into stillness.

"I know I said to go slowly, but I didn't mean _that_ slow," Bofur says, wriggling a little. He frowns when she does not react for a moment. "Are you all right? You look like—"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course…"

"Do you—do your people consider _this_ improper?" He gives her an askant look.

"Are you implying I'm loose?" he asks but he does not sound upset by the suggestion, merely amused. She huffs in frustration.

"I mean, is it considered shameful for a man to lie with a woman like this?"

"It's… usually seen as quite intimate. I'm probably not the best example for this, seeing as I'm here lying under a woman I don't truly know." He grins, a little skewed with self-depreciation. "But shameful? No."

 _Then why would your king call it defilement?_ She has to bite her lip to keep the question behind her lips, and he seems to take it as hesitation, curling one of his hands over her knee in a caress.

"What shame is there, in being taken like a queen takes her favoured consort?" he says, and suddenly Tauriel's throat is very dry and she swallows, heavily. To hear it cloaked in these words…

"And—and if you were king?"

He laughs, a bright, mirthful thing of a sound. "I'd be a very lucky king indeed."

"No, I mean if you were king and I were… me." For a long moment, Bofur just regards her with this wondering, thoughtful look and she thinks she has gone too far, has revealed too much.

"Well," he murmurs with a grin, tugging at his beard, "I'm just a toymaker—"

"A filthy rich toymaker, you've told me," Tauriel says, like it changes something, and he chuckles and sits up again, one hand on his head to keep that blasted hat in place.

"As I was saying, I'm just a toymaker, but if I were a highborn fellow, I wouldn't… actually, I'm pretty sure I'd still want it, but I couldn't have it, you know? The nobs, they're stuffy about that sort of thing. It's not… it just isn't done."

"But why not?"

"Well… a king is his kingdom, you see, so he can't just go around opening his legs for any woman with nimble fingers. Wouldn't be exactly proper for him to yield to someone below his station, would it."

Tauriel stares at him, thoughts spinning.

It is difficult to comprehend, and if she is honest she does not understand how someone could take issue not with the act itself but with the people involved—but this confusion pales in comparison to the understanding of Thorin's words, all those months ago; _this_ is why he called it defilement, and still he kissed her like he wanted her to have him.

This is their measure of decency, and who, if anyone, can lay claim to speaking the truth?

Her blood sings with the realisation.

Bofur lets out a soft, content sound as she covers his body with hers, kissing him down into the sheets.

"Ready?" she asks when she breaks away again, grinning.

"For you to shag me senseless? By all means." His ankles end up on her shoulders, his heels digging into the muscle there as she hitches into him, small shoves that take her ever deeper, half the movement of her hips and half her hands curved over his hipbones, tugging. His broad hands are warm where he is holding onto her thighs, his chest rising and falling rapidly, breathy little moans punched from his lungs. She shudders once there is no further to go, a bone-deep shiver that runs through her body right into Bofur's, and his head rolls back with a blissful sigh, pressing down on the pillow.

"Mahal, you're big," he gasps and Tauriel, arousal spiking sharp and hot in her belly, torn between concern and smugness, settles for, "You like it?" He smirks breathlessly, lifting his hips as much as he can without any leverage to speak of. His cock lies fat, blood-swollen against his belly, a smear of slick along its length.

"What do you think?"

She kisses him in reply, his small, stout body bending in half under hers as she leans forward, bracing herself on her hands and knees, and she rocks into him and upwards, once, twice. He gasps, mouth opening against hers with a gust of noise and air.

"Oh, that is _lovely_ ," he breathes. "You wouldn't mind doing that again, would you? Yes, just like—ah…"

\--o--

As it turns out, Bofur likes to talk. As it turns out, Tauriel enjoys listening to him.

"You certainly know what you're doing, _zirakinh_ ," he pants after she has come apart at the seams for the second time, her fingers dug into the flesh of his inner thighs. His voice has gone rough like ground stone, and still it is like a caress in her ears as he continues, "You'll not leave me like this, will you? I'll have you know we dwarves are a most greedy people."

Tauriel chuckles and shifts her hips back, withdrawing from him. "Maybe I like hearing you ask for it." Bofur laughs as well and twists his head up and back to look at her, his face ruddy and glinting with sweat.

"Come back here and spear me again, please?" he asks, dragging the last word into an obscene pleading sound. "I haven't had anyone get that deep in quite a number of years, and— _gods_ , don't stop, don't you dare—" and she does stop, just to hear him whine in frustration and try to squirm in her grip, grunting, "You're _terrible_ , you rotten, _thrice_ -cursed elf," before she slides as deep as their bodies will allow, and then it is only ragged noise tearing from his throat for a long moment, until she hauls him against her front and does not stop moving, and soon his words are reduced to _yes_ and _pleasepleaseplase_ and Tauriel has no words left at all.

\--o--

In the morning, she leaves a handful of copper coins for the ruined sheets. She and Bofur part on amiable terms, in agreement that an opportunity to repeat their activities would be most welcome, and as she sets off for Erebor's gates, euphoria is still humming in her blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _zirakinh_ = spike-lady  
>  I am clearly not above making terrible puns.


	3. Fragile Steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which almost everything is painful. What, you thought you'd get a proper summary?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight trigger warning: This chapter deals in part with a panic attack/PTSD; the portrayal of the attack itself is from an outsider's point of view, so I don't know how triggery it would be, but I'd like to mention it nonetheless. (Also I hope to god I haven't fucked this up.)

When Tauriel arrives at the Lonely Mountain's gates, the market is already spilling out onto the bridge. It is a bustle of dwarves and Men, and an assortment of market stalls broader than she has ever seen. There are several dwarves whose style of dress is unfamiliar, more russet and yellow colours and stripes than the blue, brown tones and the geometric patterns she has grown to associate with the dwarves of Erebor. They must hail from the Iron Hills, she supposes; perhaps they are part of the bride's entourage?

Further inside the cavernous entrance hall is a guards' post. Tauriel introduces herself and presents the sigil of Thranduil, King of Mirkwood, she had been given to validate her status as ambassador. Someone takes her horse—it and the luggage it carries will be taken care of, she is assured—then a pair of guards whisks her to a small audience hall that is nestled to the side of the main one. The floor is solid plane of green marble, instead of the towering bridges and pathways suspended above a yawning abyss that make up the main audience hall which holds the throne and the Arkenstone.

It is Dís who sits upon this throne. She is engrossed in conversation with a tall, broad-shouldered dwarf in a heavy kit standing beside her, whom Tauriel recognises as Dwalin after a moment. The few times she has seen him before, he was always at Thorin's side, and she had assumed that he was the king's personal guard.

Dís looks up when the court crier strikes a bell.

"The lady Tauriel, envoy to King Thranduil of Mirkwood," the dwarf calls out, and Tauriel is ushered towards the throne by the guards who accompanied her.

"You are alone," Dís says, in a way that is only partly a question. If she is surprised, she hides it well.

"I am," Tauriel confirms. "But I speak on behalf of King Thranduil and his people." The collar of her new robe is stiff and she moves awkwardly as she bows. She did not expect the kingsister herself to greet her, and she feels flustered under Dís' gaze; she cannot help but feel that the dwarf perceives far more than she lets on.

"We are honoured by your invitation," Tauriel says, hoping her voice carries surer than she feels. "My king wishes to convey his gratitude for the consideration."

Dís nods in acknowledgement and smiles mildly, although the corners of her mouth twitch. Tauriel suspects that her inexperience in the political matters of court is plain for Dís to see, yet she offers no condescension when she replies.

"The gratitude is ours. You are an always welcome guest in our halls." They exchange a few more sentences—concerning the safety of Tauriel's journey, mostly, and several phrases that Tauriel feels are simply reiterations of 'Thank you' and 'No, thank _you_ ' nonetheless required for conversation between officials—and Dís steps down from the throne's dais. She beckons two retainers.

"Escort the Lady Tauriel to the ambassador's quarter, and make sure she wants for nothing. And do accompany her to see my sons afterwards."

"Thank you, milady," Tauriel says with another curt bow, which Dís returns in kind.

"I shall expect you at dinner, ambassador."

\--o--

Tauriel's chambers are more of an actual house this time, to her surprise, and located on the lowest level of the royal palace. It takes little time to stow the items she brought with her.

Fíli is indisposed, she is told in regretful tones, but the retainers readily lead her higher up into the to palace and to Kíli's study.

"Lord Kíli, the Lady Tauriel has arrived."

Kíli twists around so quickly that for one moment, Tauriel worries he will fall from his chair, but he catches himself on the armrest. He looks stunned, and worn-out underneath, like he has not been sleeping well. Tauriel's chest fills with warmth to see him, after all those months. Ten cycles of the moon might be a short span of time when measured against the length of her life, but she had felt them keenly.

"Tauriel," Kíli says finally, breathless. "It is good to see you again, milady." Though the words are stiffly formal, the smile that widens his mouth is obvious and she smiles in return.

"And you as well."

He stands from his chair and moves towards her and she has to curl her hands into fists so she will not reach out to embrace him, for it would not remain a modest embrace for long.

"You may leave us," Kíli addresses the retainers. "Thank you." The two dwarves bow, then turn on their heels, striding swiftly from the room. As soon as the door closes on them, he darts past her to shoot the bolt and she has to laugh as he practically leaps into her out-stretched arms.

"Aulë, I've missed you," he whispers, his face buried in the crook of her neck.

"I've missed you as well," she murmurs in reply, "more than I imagined." He chuckles softly and she can feel his beard—still more downy fuzz than beard, really—brush her skin with the movement. She takes a few steps and lets herself drop into Kíli's now-vacant chair.

"Shouldn't you have a proper beard by now?"

"Shouldn't you be wearing armour? Besides, you like my pitiful beard."

"A little," Tauriel admits with a feigned sigh. Kíli almost giggles when she nuzzles his ear. He turns his head and the nuzzling quickly melts into a kiss, burning with months-long yearning. She had almost forgotten how extraordinarily _good_ it felt to be kissing him, how much she enjoyed this, Kíli sitting in her lap, his arms about her shoulders, his lips on hers. Bofur had been of similar height and build and warmth and utterly delightful, but she knew neither his body nor his mind the way she knew Kíli's and Fíli's.

They lose themselves in it, for a while, and the thin candles on Kíli's desk have burnt almost an inch of wax when they disentangle themselves again.

"Have you been shown your chambers already?"

"Yes. They are finer than the ones I was given last time."

"Really?"

"I'm an ambassador now, I suppose the rules are different."

"I _was_ wondering why you were wearing such elegant robes."

Tauriel gives him a playful swat. "Don't be so disrespectful, you could endanger the good relations between our peoples."

Kíli smirks and wriggles, very deliberately, in her lap until he slithers to the floor and pushes his hands underneath her robes, warm and heavy on her thighs. Her breath catches.

"I should mend relations, then?"

"Don't you want to wait until we can steal Fíli away?" she asks, even as she opens her legs. He hesitates, gaze dropping to the ground, but his voice is sure and raw when he answers.

"…No. No, I don't want to wait."

\--o--

The topmost level of Erebor's royal palace holds four atriums, and the sunlight that comes slanting down the twisting, mirror-inlaid shaft that reaches down from the mountain's surface to the largest one makes Skafid's beard shine like burnished copper. It is warm, pleasantly so, sitting in the light. Fíli imagines his cheeks are similarly pink to Skafid's, though for him it is not only the warmth driving the blood to his skin, as he continues to feel vaguely guilty and embarrassed whenever he is alone with her.

Well, as alone as they can be with two guards shadowing their every move. One of their guards—or, as Fíli suspects, their chaperones—shifts, her armour clanking softly. Skafid's eyes dart to the side and she huffs in obvious annoyance.

"I'm surprised they even let me sleep alone," she mutters. Fíli has to smile.

"You become used to it," he says, and then, quieter, "or you become better at giving them the slip." She laughs abruptly, back curving forward, and then she straightens and clears her throat with a strained air of dignity.

It makes Fíli smile wider, and guilt twists in stomach, hard and growing. He _likes_ Skafid, and he wishes desperately they could have met as strangers without obligations binding them together. He wishes they could grow to be friends without their marriage looming like a dragon's shadow over every word they exchange. Kíli would like her as well, he thinks, in those rare moments when he allows himself to long for his brother.

She can slip on an air of royalty as easily as a cloak, but underneath that she is almost playful, as far as he can tell, and she is still young, only a few years older than him and several years shy of the usual age for marriage as well.

"As I was saying," she says, holding out a dagger for him to examine, "The trick are the layers. You need at least two hundred fifty for the piece to count as drake steel, and for larger blades the number is usually four hundred and upwards."

Fíli turns the dagger in his hands, studying the winding, distorted pattern on the blade. He has never had the opportunity to attempt drake steel, and rarely seen it. It was scarce in Ered Luin, both for lack of resources and the knowledge of how to craft it; but it was famed for its hardness and strength and the wood-like patterns that infused it.

"How many layers is this?"

"Three hundred twenty-four."

He blows a whistling breath out between his teeth. "That's impressive."

"Thank you." There is a distinct note of pride in her voice, and she smiles when he hands it back to her.

"Have you ever forged a sword like this?" he asks.

"I have, three so far. But…" She glances down at the re-sheathed dagger in her lap and tugs at her beard. "I have no interest in taking them up. I prefer the smithy to a battlefield."

"Not even to test your own handiwork?"

There is a strange look in Skafid's eyes when she raises her head, almost like confusion. She tugs again at her beard. "Well, obviously… But I don't intend to wield one in battle. Ever."

The thought that she might not be talking _just_ about swords creeps up on Fíli, but he is at a loss as to what she could mean instead, so he simply nods. They both lapse into silence, the quiet growing slightly awkward with time.

Before it grows truly uncomfortable, however, a retainer appears at the southern entrance to the atrium and clears his throat. At Fíli's beck, he comes closer.

"Prince, milady."

"What is it?"

"You have visitors, prince," the retainer says and steps to the side, sweeping out his arm to indicate them.

It is Kíli, and Tauriel, and something catches in Fíli's throat. The sunlight flows over Tauriel's skin like molten gold as she steps into the light, casting the same halo onto both her and Kíli's hair as it does onto Skafid's.

"Fíli," Tauriel says, "I believe congratulations are in order?"

Looking up at Tauriel, Fíli feels very much like someone has ripped the floor from underneath his feet and left him adrift and floundering.

He remembers the last time she kissed him with alarming vividness—she kissed him goodbye, and she did so with her entire body, a heady, overwhelming and outright consuming thing of a kiss—and for one terrifying moment the memory lays itself across the present and he cannot tell whether her touch is just in his mind; but it cannot be, she would not lift him up and hold him close like this when Skafid sits right beside him…

He stammers out a reply that is hopefully coherent, though judging by her quick smile he is not particularly successful. Then she turns to Skafid and bows curtly.

"Lady Skafid, it is an honour to meet you."

Fíli barely hears Skafid's reply, his gaze inevitably drawn to Kíli, who stands at Tauriel's side with a shuttered expression, but Fíli knows his brother and underneath the stoicism boil anger and longing in equal measure. A longing that is violently answered by his own mind, like a hot knife driven between his ribs. Abruptly, his breath comes fast and flat.

How could he have thought himself to have grown immune against this? How could he have thought to endure this without agony, when his love for Kíli is so utterly woven into the marrow of his bones?

Kíli averts his eyes then, looking to Tauriel instead of meeting Fíli's gaze. Kíli could never hide his affections very well, and the softness that Fíli had once thought was only for him wells up in his face; slight, but not entirely hidden, and Fíli knows this expression too well. It hurts.

He is dragged back into conversation when Tauriel asks, "Milady, might we carry off your future husband for a moment?"

"Of—of course," Skafid replies. All three turn to look at him. Skafid is blushing, of all things, while Tauriel smiles, small and fondly, and Kíli's expression is as tumultuous as Fíli feels.

"Until later then," he gets out, nodding at Skafid, and follows his brother and Tauriel, feeling torn in countless directions. Tauriel lays a hand upon his shoulder as they walk, her fingers curling into his collar.

Kíli did not tell her, he realises. He did not tell her that Fíli was… what? Jealous? Afraid of disappointing Dís and Thorin, of disappointing his _people_?

(Consumed with things he dare not name, not anymore…)

Kíli walks slightly in front of them, steering them into less-used halls. They come to a stop at the mouth of a corridor that is not even illuminated, and Tauriel slides her hand up to cup Fíli's neck. Her touch feels impossibly hot.

"I've missed you, Fíli," she says. "It's been too long."

"I've missed you, too," he says; the words flee from him before he can stop them, a truth a part of him is desperate to disclose. Tauriel's smile widens and his throat dries up. Did she look upon him so very _fondly_ the last time they met?

Inside his head is a mess, jealousy and longing and anger and desperately growing affection tangled up so much he cannot separate them; it is a roar like the snow melt water that comes crashing down from the mountains and he does not even think to say no, just slaps his hands over Tauriel's mouth when she bends down to kiss him.

They stare at each other, wide-eyed, Fíli's heart racing painfully, until Tauriel carefully pulls back and he snatches his hands back like they have been burned. It would be easier if she were indignant, part of him thinks, for now she just seems confused, and _hurt_.

"I'm sorry, I didn't—I didn't mean—" he stammers, his voice abandoning him.

Tauriel looks from him to Kíli and back, and it feels like her gaze opens him up, lays bare the awful chaos that churns in him.

"What is going on with you two?"

His gaze drops to the ground against his will, but he does not miss the way Kíli's expression grows even stormier, his eyes dark and weary.

"This isn't just about your marriage, is it?" she asks slowly.

"I'm getting married in two days," Fíli says, in a desperate attempt to cling to the few things he knows to be true, no matter how much he wishes they were not so. "I will be king, and I can't risk—I cannot…"

"There's no one here but us." She sounds weirdly calm, almost toneless.

"I can't, I'm sorry— _I'm sorry._ "

And then he flees.

\--o--

Tauriel is left bewildered and uncomfortably worried after her meeting with Fíli. She had expected some hesitation or apprehension, especially with his future wife present, but she does not know how to interpret the almost _panicked_ way he reacted. Not that Kíli is any help, since he is less than forthcoming when she questions him about his brother's reaction.

"We—we haven't been speaking, really," is all he admits finally, pained and half-muffled into his shoulder, his head turned away from her. Although Kíli's body is warm where it curves into hers, she feels very cold then, and helpless in a way that is infuriating. She wants to pin the both of them to a wall and make them talk, but she knows that such a wish is far from decent, born from anger. Fíli is busy, as one who is so soon to be married is wont to be, and she cannot learn what troubles him if he will not permit it.

At dinner that night, she sees Thorin for the first time. Her worry over Fíli and Kíli is suddenly not the only one in her mind, and she remembers Bofur's words with startling clarity.

_A king is his kingdom, you see, so he can't just go around opening his legs for any woman with nimble fingers._

Maybe it is arrogance to believe that Thorin wants her like that, and that it is the reason for his erratic behaviour (the reason for his _fear_ ), but there is also something fiercely tempting about the thought; for this is something she can affect. She is not powerless in this.

She requests a private audience, and is inordinately grateful for her ambassador's robes because the king's sigil grants her privileges she would not enjoy if she were merely a guard. Thorin squints at her for a long moment when he is told of her request for privacy, but he does not decline.

The king's guards search her for weapons, then leave, along with the few advisors, although she suspects that at least Dwalin remains to stand guard right behind the door.

"What do you want?" Thorin asks gruffly once they are alone.

"I speak for King Thranduil and his people. He wishes to convey his gratitude for the invitation," Tauriel begins. The words feel stilted and still unfamiliar on her tongue; she repeats much of what she told Dís, formalities and phrases that sound a lot like platitudes to her ears, and Thorin replies in kind. If he realises how out of her depth she is, he does not comment on it.

He starts to frown, almost glaring, when she falls silent, unsure of how to broach the subject she truly wants to discuss.

"I don't see how you telling me this required privacy," Thorin says at last, the words clipped.

"Because I have another concern."

"And what might that be?"

"You… you never answered my question."

He visibly hesitates. "…Which question?"

"Are you afraid of me?" she repeats, and watches as he goes slightly pale, just like he did ten months ago. "You don't have to reply," she hurries on to say, "I think I understand, now, but—"

"Get out," he says, dangerously quiet. He stands abruptly, rigidly, and stalks towards the door. She has very little scruples about using her height to her advantage, so she leaps right over the stone slab of a table to land in front of him, blocking his path. His eyes widen.

"Just hear me out," she implores him because if what Bofur told her holds any truth, Thorin knows that underhanded shame, and if he knows it…

"Please, that's all I ask."

A strange expression passes over his face. His features soften for a moment, then his scowl returns. Yet he neither attempts to leave, nor force her to do so, and Tauriel's heart beats faster. She struggles for words for a moment—she had doubted she would even get this far—until she simply blurts out what has dogged her thoughts for the past days.

"Elves hold very different opinions about intercourse than dwarves."

Thorin snorts, his eyes flicking like he barely stopped himself from rolling them, and Tauriel gives him a teeth-baring smile. "I don't mean the notions of what constitutes marriage," she says, perhaps harsher than she intended. "I mean _spearing_. That is what dwarves call it, isn't it?" Thorin goes pink in the cheeks. She takes it as an affirmative, and continues.

"No one truly, openly, speaks of these matters because we like to pretend no one actually engages in it. But my people have a certain attitude about it nonetheless. It is not… favourable. I've laid with men—lovely, wanton men—who treat me with disdain when the night has passed, and no one steps in to halt their tongues because a woman who makes herself into something else for a man's pleasure is not worth defending." She laughs humourlessly.

"Although no one has ever said this explicitly. That is the viciousness of it. No one has ever called me slattern to my face, but they did not need to—not when I had a voice in my head doing it for them. And I… I believe that you're familiar with this, that you know this voice as well."

Thorin looks like she struck him.

"It's wrong," he breathes. At first she is confused, but before she can ask him to clarify, he continues, his voice raw. "How can anyone believe that y—that a woman could _lower_ herself by…" He swallows heavily, his gaze drops to the ground and he shifts his weight backwards. Tauriel's body feels strangely light, though her heart beats like a war drum in her chest.

"Oh, I agree—" She did not intend to touch him, but she needs to see his eyes for this, and they are bright, his blood-darkened cheeks are warm under her palms as she goes on, "If my people are wrong in this, then who is to say yours aren't wrong in this, too?" Thorin's body sways forward again and he seizes her wrists, not like he wants to push them away, rather like he is holding on.

"What are you saying?" he whispers, nigh frantic.

"I'm saying that voice is _lying_ ," Tauriel says. Perhaps she should have said these words in the beginning, perhaps she should stop speaking then, but she had not, and she does not. "It's lying when it tells me it's shameful to want to be inside you, and it's lying when it tells you that no worthy king should want to be taken."

Thorin abruptly lets go of her but he does not move away, he inches closer and when her hands fall to his shoulders, his chest, he leans into their hold. His eyes are bright like candle flame. Desperate hunger is written all across his face.

"You don't know what I want."

"I'm speculating," Tauriel admits, grinning helplessly. "Am I wrong?"

His mouth opens as if to reply, but instead of words a strangled breath escapes, and she does not intend to kiss him either but her lips press to the corner of his mouth, soft and fleeting. Thorin follows her, and then it is no longer so.

He is as warm and desperate as she remembers, his hands scrabbling for grip on her shoulders. Her own hands shake with the raging fire that floods her veins but she takes hold of his waist nonetheless; grasps him and lifts him and lays him out on the stone slab, edging her knee onto it after him, and he never relinquishes his own grip, never stops kissing her (and it is still more bite than kiss, this time).

Tauriel knows this is one of the worst places to have a tumble; disregarding even the fact that the stone slab is far from comfortable, there are surely guards nearby, ready to burst in if they suspect their king to be in peril.

There is a light clatter as his crown slips from Thorin's head to land on the table.

" _Tauriel_ ," he gasps out when she rips his belt open, agonized and full of need and these concerns flee from her mind, swept away by a violent, greedy hunger. Gods, she wants to take him apart.

It is a wonder she manages to bare his neck and collarbones, fingers moving blindly, and her thumb nearly tears along the clasp of his tunic when she finally flicks it open. He is gasping for breath when she draws away, colour high in his cheeks, eyes wide and bright and he looks at her like—like…

His thighs clench at her sides as she tongues his neck, the point where his collarbones meet, and the soft thin skin there. He moans, sighs, half-swallowed sounds that might be words and she winds one of her hands into his hair and tugs, setting her mouth to the arc of his throat; she is eager to know if she can drag the same ruined moan from him that Kíli is so ready to offer when she pulls on his hair.

Thorin's leg jerks, his knee colliding with her stomach, while his fingers dig into her shoulders hard enough to bruise. The pain is sudden and Tauriel gasps, curling in on herself and away, and she has already retreated to standing before she realises that he has not moved. That he has paled to bone-white, his eyes glassy.

Cold tendrils of dread tighten around her heart.

"Thorin?" He does not react, and she repeats his name, louder, with anxious insistence. For a long, terrible moment only silence reigns, then he flinches violently, gulping for breath like a drowning man. He scrambles into a sitting position and she unwittingly takes a step backwards when they come face to face, so unsettling is the utter panic in his expression.

"I can't, I can't…" he pants, his voice brittle. He quavers. "I'm king, I—I _can't_."

Tauriel feels rooted to the spot. Her throat has gone painfully dry, and it hurts when she swallows. She looks down, at her hands. Her hands, in his hair.

"Did I hurt you?" she asks tonelessly. No reply comes. She draws a shuddering breath and looks up again. "Thorin, did I hurt you?"

"No!" he snaps abruptly. "No, I'm f—"

His mouth already shapes the word, but no sound leaves him then; perhaps he realises it is too blatant a lie to even try to tell it. He is shaking like a leaf, violently, his breath coming in stabs.

"I'm sorry," Tauriel says, feeling utterly cold and helpless again and hating it. She steps closer but freezes when Thorin's entire body jerks and goes still, like he is trying to hide a flinch.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"…Yes," he grits out, his voice ragged and wet, but continues, lower and hectic, "No—not yet, wait," when she turns to comply. He says nothing else, but takes his crown and slides down from the table, gingerly and with such caution she worries for a moment that his legs might buckle under him. He stands, braced against the stone, and closes his eyes and his breath keeps hitching, like dry sobs, growing quiet and small, and she feels sick to her stomach with guilt. There is a tremble in his hands as he puts on the crown again. She wants to ask why she should wait, when he is clearly so distraught, yet—

It is like watching a mask being laid upon someone's face, layer by layer. When Thorin opens his eyes again, his face is blank.

"Thank you for your visit," he says very formally. "Please send your king my regards."

Tauriel stares at him, dumbfounded. He seems absurdly composed, compared to just moments before. But… a muscle in his neck jumps as she keeps staring, and he barely blinks, his eyes wider than usual.

"I will," she manages finally, hearing her own voice as though through water. She turns around then, and leaves.

Dwalin is standing not right outside the door, although a few yards down the corridor, as she suspected—and had almost forgotten. Her heart rate jumps slightly, but he only acknowledges her with a thin-lipped nod. His gaze flits down then, down and behind her. She does not wait to find out if Thorin has stepped out of the council room right after her, or if he still wears his face like a mask.

\--o--

Toguz Kumalak is no game that requires much, or any, conversation; but even so, Tauriel is unusually taciturn, her expression sombre. Kíli keeps watching her face instead of the marbles she moves, and consequently loses the first round astonishingly fast. She barely smiles in triumph.

"You seem distracted," she comments. Kíli shrugs uncomfortably.

"You are as well. Did… did Thorin say something to you, when you spoke to him?"

She does not meet his eyes.

"He was perfectly courteous." The way she says it, Kíli suspects it was quite the opposite, though he does not push for more. A stifling silence descends between them again as he moves to reset the marbles. He knows that Fíli and Tauriel have not exchanged more than the few sentences they did on the previous day, much less a kiss; when before the three of them would have sneaked off for a quick fumble at least once already. Yet now…

Tauriel covers his hand with hers on the board.

"Will you tell me what has you and Fíli in a quarrel?" she asks quietly. Kíli swallows, looking down at their joined hands. Her fingers seem so very long and slender when compared to his short, thick ones, but he knows the strength they possess and he holds tight.

"I—I don't know," he admits, both lie and truth. He knows the intense jealousy which grips him whenever he thinks of Skafid and that she will marry his brother; he knows the heavy cold weighing in the pit of his stomach is because he can count the times Tauriel has laughed since she arrived on one hand, and still have plenty fingers left. He knows Fíli looked at her like he wanted to climb into her lap right then and there, and still he spurned them. He does not know what to do with it.

She pushes the board to the side and she looks nigh _pained_. He hates it. "I wish he wouldn't marry Skafid, either, but Kíli… he will be king one day, and there are obligations he has to fulfil."

"I know; I _know_ that. He said it wouldn't mean anything, but how does that make it better? He still has to—"

"Kíli, look at me," Tauriel says, not unkindly. "Do you remember Bofur?"

Kíli blinks. "…I do, of course," he says slowly, stunned by the sudden change in subject. "But how do you know of him?"

"I met him, the day before I arrived. I spend the night at a tavern, and we came to talk. I…" She laughs softly, her mouth curving into a smile, a real, bitten-lips smile that Kíli knows all to well.

"I took him to bed."

He drops his gaze down to his hands, one of them still tangled with Tauriel's. He is blushing; he can feel his cheeks grow hot. Strangely, the jealousy he expected is fleeting—he knows Tauriel has lain with others, neither he nor Fíli had ever thought to ask that she stop, just like she never expected it of them—though his confusion remains.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because it meant something to me, and I care for you all the same. Fíli loves you, and if he comes to cherish Skafid, he will not cease to love you. And if he has to bed her, wouldn't it be better if they both did so willingly?"

"I don't doubt that he loves me," Kíli whispers, feeling wretched and torn open. _I doubt my own heart_. How could he claim to love Fíli, how could he call him _atamanel_ , when Tauriel's smile sent his heartbeat stuttering like a stone skipping across water?

"Perhaps you should tell him this?"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

Kíli's throat closes up. The silence stretches and strains between them, until Tauriel braces herself on the desk and leans over to place a kiss on the top of his head, and his tongue loosens abruptly.

"Our bed smelled like forest for days, the last time you were here."

Tauriel makes a sort of humming noise, a note of surprise in the sound. Her lips brush his forehead and Kíli tilts his head up, eyes closing.

"Do I smell like forest?" she asks.

"Yes… In the morning, it was easy to pretend you were still there. Like you had just rolled away because we'd kicked in the night."

"You didn't kick _that_ much," she says with a chuckle. "You two are lucky, I had only a cold bed waiting for me in Mirkwood."

Her mouth meets his and Kíli melts into it; it is a kiss far softer than they usually share. Tauriel's hand curls about his neck, and though her hand is so unlike a dwarven one, he is inevitably reminded of kissing Fíli like this, in the beginning, when they knew so little of this, when they were not drunk on sex.

"What has you so twisted over this?" she asks then, and Kíli's mouth spills words before he can think to stop himself.

"I love Fíli, I love him like a flame loves air, but I—I…" He forces himself to meet Tauriel's gaze, her dark eyes, deep like still waters, deep enough to drown in them. Words rise in his throat, words the likes of which he has spoken before; words that are no less damning than they were the first time he uttered them, no less easy to speak, and no less true.

"I think of you when you are not here and I wish you'd never have to leave for so very long and when you touch me I get so warm inside and sometimes I think that I could listen to you talk for hours, and I wanted to kiss you so badly yesterday I almost did and I wouldn't have cared who saw it."

"Kíli," Tauriel whispers, breathes, shudders. Her hand drops from his neck. " _Kíli_."

\--o--

Thorin spends the remainder of the day hunting down every dwarf charged with organising the wedding and ensuring, in a possibly quite intimidating fashion, that everything is proceeding as planned and little to nothing is left to chance. The tasks have long been delegated and he is actually not required to oversee them directly, nor is it necessarily beneficial for him to do so—he suspects he did more harm than good when he descended upon the cook—but he cannot stop moving. His legs start shaking (so weak, _weak_ , and how have they not given out yet) if he allows himself to stand still for longer than two minutes.

However he is expected to receive Lady Skafid's parents, the Lady Kenna and Lord Skirfir, once more, and seeing as it is the eve before the wedding, he can scarcely refuse.

Dís accompanies him to one of the smaller audience halls close to ground level—or rather, he accompanies her, since he is filling the role of the bridegroom's father. Her presence grounds him, a small comfort against the dread he feels at the prospect of spending an extended amount of time half-trapped in a chair in a room so similar to the one in which he met with Tauriel. The table is more ornate, more an actual table than a slab of stone, and looking at it sends a prickling shiver down his spine. But Lady Kenna and Lord Skirfir are practically royalty themselves and as such it would be a grave insult to force them to stand for such a meeting.

The meeting itself is largely comprised of formality: the reciting of rites and blessings for the marriage, and the pledging of the joining families' loyalties to one another. There are witnesses but no contracts now, for this is tradition, something old and close to the stone, and Thorin only stumbles twice over his words.

Skirfir and Kenna frown, and Thorin can feel his insides knotting up again, dark edging into his vision but Dís nudges her leg against his beneath the table after it happens, steady and strong while his trembles, though her gaze remains fixed on Kenna and Skirfir. She recites her promises with confidence.

It is worrying how quickly she has seen through his mask. He had thought he had grown better at hiding his cracks.

Afterwards, when Dís has brought the meeting to a swift end, she steers him subtly back up towards the royal palace. He lets her, even though he has no intention of discussing the matter with her. The entirety of Erebor seems to be bustling about and it takes Dís awhile until she reaches her private chambers. She closes the door after him and crosses her arms in the way she does when she is concerned and tries not to show it.

"What happened?"

"It's nothing," he mutters, and then adds quickly, "Nothing I wish to talk about." Lying to Dís is useless, he has learned a long time ago. She knows him too well.

Her mouth twists and she sighs, shaking her head slightly. "If you say so." She steps closer, and her voice is softer when she speaks again.

"Will you be all right tomorrow?"

"I will."

He has to be.

"What about tonight? I can ask Dwalin to stand watch."

"That won't be necessary."

Dís looks at him like she thinks of watching over him herself, but they both know it has been decades since he permitted it, and she does not suggest it. She lays her hand onto his arm, carefully.

"Sleep well, brother."

\--o--

Thorin takes his dinner in his study, alone, with no one present to wonder why he alternates between pacing about the room and stiffly sitting in his chair. He barely tastes any of it, and with no tasks to occupy his thoughts, they stray unerringly to the events of the past morning, and to what Tauriel had told him.

_…and it's lying when it tells you that no worthy king should want to be taken._

It is bewildering to consider the opinions elves seem to hold on spearing, and he finds himself wondering how Tauriel had learned of the act in the first place, when elves were already so particular about sex. Had she first heard of it when it was spoken in mockery, as young lords banded together in friendship as much as enmity tried to undermine one another?

There had been a young woman, the daughter of a blacksmith, who had caught one of the young lords’ eyes. Smitten he was, such that his companions had laughed at his pining and said, _Will you let her take and spear you, like a common beggar?_

Thorin sets his cup down with enough force to rattle the plates of his meal, and his fingers clench into fists where they are pressed to the desk. The memory and all others like it are dim, so long ago it was… dim and hazy, but for the sound of jeering laughter, and how he had sat in silence, shameful curiosity a hot spark at the base of his spine.

Had Tauriel known such judgement would await her, or had she simply taken what was offered and only in the aftermath come to learn of it? Or had she been like him, young and thus foolish, reckless, and so very susceptible to the allure of the forbidden?

He hates to remember these things, but the memory of Tauriel’s body on top of his is bright and sharp, and it cuts down to all the touches he has tried his hardest to bury where even nightmares cannot reach them.

(The skilled hands of a nightworker, sweeping aside his hair to place her lips between his shoulder blades. Those hands on his inner thighs, wet with oil. Thrain’s warm heavy palm upon his neck on the day after. _A king submits to no one, Thorin._ )

To think that the elven king, that Thranduil could ask for such treatment, or even demand it, and it would be considered an insult to the woman in question – or perhaps an honour, to be desired like this by the king himself?

It appears that no one would think less of the king for it. Even if the king cried out, even if he begged someone who was of far lesser blood; how could anyone think nothing of this—

Thorin’s breath has grown thin, feeling as though there is still cold stone beneath his back and a warm body trapping him against it. He has not felt this vulnerable since—since the last time…

The last time, the woman had been human. Thorin had been drunk on wine and grief; he had paid her with dirty scavenged coins. It had been autumn, and raining. Dwalin had sat in the next room over with an axe across his lap because Thror had been months dead and Thrain gone for weeks. The sound of rain falling on the roof of the woman's house had followed Thorin afterwards for a long, long time. What had followed him for even longer was the expression on Dwalin’s face when they had left.

(The woman’s body curved atop his. No kisses but a smile, this time. _If I’d known you made noise like that, would’ve done you for nothing_.)

The remains of his dinner grow cold, the appetite gone from him. The spark that flickered at the base of his spine no matter how hard he tried to extinguish it has become a fire, and the shame over it seems to burn him from the inside out.

What kind of king craves to feel vulnerable?


	4. Kings And Queens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been eight fucking months to the day, but I DID IT. Praise a deity of your choosing, etc. Thanks to [hobbitdragon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/pseuds/hobbitdragon) for the beta work and indulging my general flailing about this fic.
> 
> ALSO: I edited and expanded the last scene of the third chapter to fix some worldbuilding issues, and while it's not crucial to read that for the understanding/enjoyment of this chapter, I would strongly suggest it.

Skafid is radiant. Countless tiny, golden gems are woven into her beard and they sway and glitter with every step she takes. Her dress flows in red and gold, and her father walks at her side.

Fíli himself has little beard in comparison, but it too is woven in with gems and strings of silver like his hair. His robes are dark blue and grey with brown fur. Dis walks beside him, in her hands a small velvet pouch, mirror to the one Skafid's father is carrying.

Fíli's heart is beating in his throat.

He catches Skafid's eyes when they meet at the center of the great, looming wedding hall, and they both glance up towards the far ceiling where a glistening chandelier of blue and white crystal glows. She gives him a small, quick smile and they move to stand beside each other, with their respective parent behind them. The weight of the countless eyes on them presses heavy on Fíli's shoulders though he stands straight, the image of a king.

They both hold out a hand, Fíli his left and Skafid her right, to lace their fingers together.

The ceremony is short, but to Fíli it still feels like hours have passed when he and Skafid embrace at the end, their hands tied together with a heavy ribbon, and each of them have a gleaming hairclasp hanging from a cord around their neck. That part is for later, for the casting of the vows they spoke now is something sacred, and private.

Skafid squeezes his hand, where their fingers are still laced together.

\--o--

For all the sweeping staircases and deep shafts of empty air Erebor possesses, there are wide, grand halls as well. This one is decked out in the black, blue and silver of Durin's line, interspersed with the red-and-gold banners of the bride's family. Countless torches and chandeliers fill the space with a warm, bright light, the dozens of long tables and benches arrayed in a starburst pattern around a halfmoon table at the head of the hall. Behind that stand the thrones and seats of the newlywed families. Small clusters of musicians spread throughout the hall.

The tables positively groan under the weight of the food and drink piled high upon them. Tauriel has seen no less than five fat pigs, glazed and stuffed with fruit, dozens of pheasants still in their plumage, huge caskets of wine and beer, an entire _cow_ on a skewer… The smell is mouth-watering, and it is _so much_.

Although considering the great number of dwarves who fill the wide room, perhaps the amount is not so excessive as it might appear.

She is seated among dwarven nobility, right between higher and lower, for her birth is common and she is an elf, but she is friend to the princes and envoy of king Thranduil—she suspects that there was some discussion over where to seat her.

The dwarves on either side of her nod slightly in acknowledgement as she sits down, then turn back to their neighbours, deeply engrossed in conversation. It stings a little, although it is not unexpected. She would not quite know how to start a normal conversation with a dwarf, either.

The hall hushes when Thorin rises and raises his cup in celebration of the wedding. His words get nearly drowned in the clamoring cheers that break out then, and although there was eating before, now it seems to start in earnest.

Dwarves are never ones to eat silently or with great propriety, and thus as the feast progresses the noise rises further; talk and laughter, the clinking of cutlery and cheerful music intertwining. What Tauriel had thought to be a rigid order of seating also soon eases and then breaks as more and more dwarves wander from their places to talk to each other, often carrying their plates and cups with them. Others abandon eating entirely and bring themselves to the few yards of free floor to dance to the music. At one point someone at the neighbouring table pulls two fiddlers on top of the table and makes an impressive show of dancing between the plates and cups, skirts pulled up to knee-height.

Tauriel watches the spectacle with a growing smile and cheers right along with the surrounding dwarves when the dancer eventually takes a bow and steps back onto the ground. As she looks around, she sees that more and more dwarves have taken to dancing. Tauriel's belly is warm and pleasantly full, the wine has left a soft tingle under her skin, and although the music is very different to the one she is used to, it makes her body itch to move with it. She rises and makes her way to the halfmoon-shaped table, gaze searching for Kíli and Fíli.

Dís has already joined the dancers she realizes on the way, the kingsister whirling with the king's bodyguard in-between the tables. Then Tauriel reaches the royal table and bows her head in greeting. For a split second Thorin's expression utterly freezes as he watches her before he returns the nod, and a small part of Tauriel is tempted to ask him for a dance first – but the rest of her remembers the fear on his face in the councilroom, and does not.

Instead, she turns to Kíli and Fíli, who – although having been seated side-by-side – have managed to turn almost completely away from one another. Tauriel wants to sigh in frustration. Fíli looks at her like a caught rabbit when she asks him to dance, but there is longing, too, she thinks. He rises easily enough and she gets the hint of a smile from him when she tells him quietly, as they are walking from the table, that she does not know any dwarvish dances so he will have to teach her lest she embarrass herself.

The difference in height proves to be a slight problem, but they make do. When their arms would lay about each other's waists, Fíli puts his on Tauriel's hips and she lays hers along his shoulders. The part where each dancer grasps their partner by the waist to hoist them into the air and come down with a stomping of feet has them stumbling a little because Fíli hesitates and fumbles for far too long to get a proper grip on her hips. But when it is Tauriel's turn she bends her knees easily and lifts him, so high his feet come nearly a yard off the ground. Fíli lets out a breathless sound.

A small round of hollers goes off around them and Tauriel hastily sets him down again, pulling her hands back.

"Should I not have done that?" she asks in a whisper, glancing around, but Fíli… Fíli _smiles_ and retakes her hands.

"That was impressive," he tells her. "You can do it again."

Tauriel looks down at him, a little stunned. There are still thick layers of apprehension and something like ache in his expression but the smile…

Oh, how she wants to kiss him.

She does not, and she does not ask either, despite the fact that she thinks with all the drunken revelry that is going on around them they could likely get away with it. They dance for a good while longer, and every time she lifts him high into the air, cheers and hollers follow.

Eventually the musicians slide smoothly into a different song, and Fíli comes to a stop. Tauriel follows his gaze and finds Skafid approaching them. She takes a step backwards when the dwarf woman reaches them.

"I didn't mean to keep your husband for quite so long, milady," she says but Skafid only chuckles, stopping her with a wave of her hand.

"We won't dance until the end," she says.

"You don't?" Tauriel glances at Fíli, whose expression has gone shuttered, although he explains.

"It's tradition that the wedded pair only dance together right before the consummation of the vows."

"Oh." She looks to Skafid. "So you…"

"I'd like to dance with you, lady Tauriel."

Tauriel blinks.

"I—I'd be honoured," she manages.

As it turns out, Skafid is a very enthusiastic dancer, and skilled as well for she moves smoothly even though Tauriel can smell the wine and mead on her, and her joy in it is infectious. She laughs in delight when Tauriel sweeps her up and even manages to lift Tauriel a foot from the ground in turn, her hands sure and steady.

With time, more and more dwarves fill the empty spaces of the hall. Tauriel's blood sings with the exhilaration of dancing. When Skafid eventually takes a bow, disappearing into the throng of dancers, and a young dwarf with even less of a beard than Kíli but thickly braided and decorated hair asks to take her place, Tauriel does not hesitate in agreeing.

After what feels like several hours, she spots Kíli sitting at one of the long tables and makes her way towards him.

"A dance, my prince?" she asks him, ruffling his hair. Kíli makes a noise of indignation but his face lights up when he looks at her.

Kíli is far less hesitant about touching her than Fíli was and together they twine around crowds of dancers that have begun to form circles around some of the musicians. Drunken joy hangs like a fog in the air, thick and sweet, and Kíli laughs like Skafid did when Tauriel sweeps him around.

Until the music changes, grows roaring loud and countless dwarves break out in song and defeaning cheers, and Kíli freezes, his face falling.

"Kíli, what is the matter?" Tauriel asks, worry building in the pit of her stomach.

"They're dancing," he whispers. She frowns.

"Kíli, nigh _everyone_ is—"

"Not them, I mean—Fíli. And Skafid. It means…" He breaks off, his head dropping.

"I know what it means," Tauriel says gently. He draws in a shuddering breath, shoulders shaking.

"Can we leave? I can't stand to watch it."

"Kíli…"

"No one will notice, I swear. The feast will go on for _hours_ , and I—" He looks up at her, the skin under his eyes red with more than wine and warmth. "Please."

\--o--

Fíli and Skafid leave the banquet hall under raucous cheering. A small squad of guards accompanies them up into the higher levels of the royal palace where they reach the suite of rooms deemed for the consummation of the wedding vows.

The guards light the lanterns inside the room, then leave the couple alone. When the door slides shut with a soft dull noise, Fíli and Skafid look at each other. The rules for this are old and they both know them.

Not speaking, they each untie the cut ribbon from their wrist and then take off the necklaces which carry the hairclaps they exchanged. They plait a four-stranded braid into the other's hair, each on the right side, each with the hair that grows close to the neck, and weave the cut ribbon into it. At the end, they close the braids with the hairclasps.

"With this, I wed you," Fíli murmurs and leans in to kiss the metal of the clasp, cold against his lips. He kisses Skafid's cheek, close to the corner of her mouth. "With blood and iron and rock, I am yours." Skafid does the same.

Afterward, they sit silently beside each other on the edge of the bed, not quite meeting each other's eyes. It feels like such a little thing, this small piece of metal in Fíli's hair, but now… their marriage is cast, their vows consummated, they are bound together by law and oath and iron.

Skafid's foot scuffles beneath her dress, like she is nervous. Fíli's throat is painfully tight again. Does she expect—does she not want… What if she does want?

"Fíli," Skafid says then abruptly, looking up. She bites her lip and draws in a rough little breath and says nothing, seems frozen in that moment. Her fingers are clenched into the front of her dress. She does not look happy, she looks desperately uncomfortable. Distressed, even.

Fíli shoves his own consuming misery aside, yet still stumbles over his words. "Please know that I don't—I don't expect anything from you. You must know that."

Now Skafid turns to face him, her eyes first wide, then soft and very, very sad.

"You didn't understand, did you," she says. "When I was talking of the smithy? When I said I have no interest in taking up swords, and that I never would?"

Fíli is lost. He had suspected she meant something deeper, but he had not known what. He shakes his head silently. Skafid inhales deeply and unclenches her fingers and cards them through her hair and fixes him with dark eyes, her gaze like a weight pinning him to the spot. When she speaks, it is with a voice that is quiet and clear and strong.

"I was talking about men. I have no interest in fucking them, or loving them, I have no interest in lying with _you_ , and that—that will not change."

It is not exactly that Fíli collapses in sudden, abject relief, but his breath goes out of him like he has been holding it for weeks and not even known it. A helpless little laugh steals out of him too, on the heels of that breath. To think that—he does not know what to think, but the knot in his throat is dwindling to nothing.

Skafid frowns at him when he does not reply.

"You seem… relieved," she says carefully. Fíli sees no point in lying, so he answers plainly.

"Yes."

"Do you—do you prefer men, then?"

Fíli can feel his cheeks go red at the question, but he does not lie now, either.

"I like both, but there is—there is someone…" _Two someones_ , something dark whispers inside him.

Suddenly Skafid is smiling, and then laughing though she tries to stifle it—unsuccessfully—and then she lets herself fall back upon the bed with a great sigh.

" _Mahal_ ," she says, "don't we make a fine couple."

Fíli finds himself grinning with her, a heady, gleeful relief rising in him, and he joins her on his side on the bed.

"We will be," he tells her. "You will make a great queen, Skafid."

Her mouth twists a little.

"You will need an heir, one day."

"And when that day comes, we will find a way. I mean it, I—I know neither of us chose this, but I want you to be happy. And I think both of us can, we can be king and queen and have both…"

 _Both_.

Fíli grows quiet, his heart beating fast.

"You mean we can be king and queen and never share a bed? That I can have women as bedmates and you your _someone_?"

"…Why shouldn't we? What harm is it to our people who we wish to bed, if we are quiet about it?"

Skafid simply looks at him for a very long time.

"I think you could make a truly _good_ king one day," she says earnestly, and Fíli has to resist the urge to hide his burning face in the bedsheet.

"Thank you," he replies quietly. She props herself up on her elbow then, a considering expression on her face.

"Can I ask you who your someone is?"

"I—" Fíli rolls onto his back, avoiding her gaze.

"Is it the elf? You looked quite… fondly at her, I thought. And she is very strong."

Even lying down, it feels like the ground wants to open up underneath Fíli to swallow him. He gets up from the bed. His blood roars in his veins, though it feels like his heart is beating slow and heavy.

"I can't tell you."

"Oh. I'm sorry." He can hear clothes rustle as Skafid straightens up and moves towards him. She lays a careful hand on his shoulder, and he lets her.

"Fíli… I'd rather spend the night in my own rooms, soft as this bed here is. Is there somewhere you'd rather sleep tonight?"

Fíli shivers, for in the parts of him that are deep and dark and rarely rise to the light, he knows where he wants to sleep this night, and every night to come.

\--o--

Tauriel's body is as tall and warm and strong as ever, and the weight of it pins Kíli easily to the inside of his door. They kiss like they cannot decide if they want softness or harsh touches; until Tauriel fists her hand into his hair to hold him still and Kíli realizes that he is the only one who has been letting his teeth slip.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs when his breathing has calmed, though it still gusts out of him in bursts. He is still pinned between her body and the heavy old oak of the door.

"What are you trying to do, forget?" she asks him, serious, as he has rarely seen her.

"I—I don't know." He wishes he _could_ forget the hairclasp hanging from his brother's neck and what it means. But the thought of pretending that he is not hurting, that the distance he and Fíli have carved out between them does not make him sick with longing…

"I don't know what to do, Tauriel. I just…"

There is nowhere to hide when they are this close, and part of him is glad for it. Tauriel slides a gentle kiss against the corner of his mouth and Kíli sighs into it. He wraps his arms about her shoulders when she curls hers under his legs to carry him. She deposits him on the bed with an exaggerated heave that startles a laugh from him, then flops down beside him, her legs dangling over the edge of the bed.

"I suggest we go on a hunt once the celebrations are finished," she says after a moment. "Just the three of us, preferably. No one to eavesdrop on our conversation, so we may talk in peace."

"I… I don't know if that will be possible. Fíli is—I mean, he always has been, but now—he's the crown prince. It will be difficult."

"Then at least the two of you have to find time to speak about this. You're hurting over it, don't pretend you're not."

"'This'?"

Tauriel turns onto her side and levels a look at him. "That you're jealous because of his marriage. And that you—that you love me as well."

Kíli's heart skips a little in his chest. He must be staring, because Tauriel starts to frown.

"That's what you said, isn't it?"

"I—I did, yes, that is…"

It is the truth.

"I love Fíli," he whispers. Another truth. Kíli's throat goes dry.

"And I love you. I didn't…  I didn't think both of these could be true, but they _are_ , and I'm _in love with both of you_ —" Giddiness is bubbling up fast and heady in him, it stretches his mouth into a grin and turns his breath into something that is half laughter. He turns on his side to kiss her, puts his hand on her cheek and her lips are parted for a moment before she kisses him back, and she shifts and suddenly she is above him.

Kíli grasps at her shoulders, heady with it all. He keeps saying it, her name and _I love you_ , _love you both_. Tauriel says his name, too, and she keeps kissing him until Kíli's lungs protest, his chest full of smoldering warmth but no air.

When he pulls back and opens his eyes, Tauriel is watching him, an expression on her face he has never seen before.

"I'm in love with you," Kíli breathes again, because he is unable not to, because he wants to shout it from the top of the mountain, that his heart is wide and greedy and filled with love. Tauriel cups his face in her hands and kisses the tip of his nose.

"I know," she murmurs. She absently strokes his cheeks, his hair, and she is smiling, yet—

There is a whisper growing inside him that asks, _Why doesn't she say it back?_

And on the heels of it: _That is no happy smile._

Abruptly the giddiness leaves Kíli.

"Tauriel, are you—"

Someone is knocking on the main door of his rooms. Tentative, then stronger and there is no more mistaking the sound. Tauriel straightens herself up, looking over her shoulder.

"Do you think someone sent guards looking for us?" she asks slowly as she crawls from the bed.

"I don't— _Tauriel_ ," Kíli calls softly, feeling cold and out of his depth. There is another knock. She turns to look at him again.

"What if it's Fíli?"

Kíli swallows, then follows her with trepidation as she walks towards the entrance chamber of his rooms.

"Tauriel, if it's not him, you shouldn't be seen in here," he says, just as Tauriel clamps down one hand on his shoulder, bringing him to a stop.

"I know," she says quietly. Then, with more insistence: "And I know you love both of us, but he doesn't, and you need to tell him. So open the damn door and see who it is."

Kíli swallows again, but he nods.

It's Fíli.

Kíli just stares at him, gobsmacked and knees weak, until Tauriel leans around from behind the door where she had hid herself.

"I assume the vows have been consummated?" she asks carefully. Fíli goes bright red in the cheeks and stammers something that sounds vaguely like an affirmation, his gaze darting between hers and Kíli's face. In the end he rubs both palms across his face and lets out a deep breath.

"I came to talk to you, if you'll allow it," he says. His voice shakes a little. Kíli wants nothing more than to throw his arms around his brother and hide the three of them away from the world, for a while at least, but Tauriel is right. They need to talk.

"That's good, because Kíli has something to tell you as well. "

Tauriel steps from behind the door and pats Kíli on the shoulder as she passes him, then she glances out into both sides of the corridor.

"I'll leave you two alone to discuss things, I—"

"You're not staying?" Kíli asks. The coldness returns, and with it uncertainty.

Tauriel is quiet for a long moment, gaze cast away. Finally she shakes her head.

"No, I… I need some time. Come find me in the morning."

"Tauriel—" Kíli and Fíli say in unison, then break off. Kíli glances at his brother, feels his cheeks heat. She turns around again, the ghost of a smile on her face, and bends to kiss him. It is soft, lingering. Kíli's lips tingle when she pulls away and he can feel Fíli's gaze on him like the touch of a hand. And then Tauriel slides her curled fingers gently under Fíli's chin.

"May I?"

Fíli's throat moves as he swallows, but he tilts his head up and she gives him the same kind of kiss, slow and tender and it leaves Fíli visibly shaken.

"Come find me in the morning," Tauriel repeats, and leaves.

They are alone.

\--o--

The staircase which leads into the halls below the royal palace is long, and far broader than most others Tauriel has encountered in Erebor. There is a landing about halfway down, where the green marble floor is inlaid with shimmering golden stone. She sits down on the second lowest steps and stretches her legs out before her, braces herself on her hands. Lets her head hang down and draws in the deep breath she has been craving since she left Kíli's rooms. She feels like she _ran_.

The robes which flowed so easily about her body while dancing feel heavy and constricting now. The ceiling is far above her but she wants truly open spaces, she wants the endless night sky above her—

There is starlight on the wall. Tauriel glances up the shadowed wall and finds that high up, long, narrow holes have been dug into the rock. Beams of white light fall through them. The wall has been carved with a sunken relief stretching right up to those light hatches, and next to Tauriel the statue of a sturdy dwarf looms from the wall, ten feet high.

In the dim darkness she can barely make out what the relief depicts, but she sees the grooves in the stone and how well her fingers would fit there…

Tauriel stands and sheds the wide outer layer of her robes, leaves it pooled on the floor. There is no one here to take offense in any case. The guards are at the gates and at the feast. Not here, where the noise of the celebration is only a soft din in the distance.

It is easy to vault onto the statue's shoulders, and from there to fit her hands into the recesses of the relief and pull herself up. She climbs the wall swiftly. When she heaves herself into the hewn crenel, she realizes that it is almost a corridor, wide enough for a dwarf to stand in, though she must still stoop. It would have to be large enough for masons and artisans, she thinks then, for the stone is covered with long mirror plates that reflect the starlight down from the mountain's surface. It is not the night sky she had hoped to see, but the light is familiar all the same, and soothing for it.

She looks back over her shoulder and sees her silhouette thrown large and dark upon the opposite wall, framed in the cool starlight, a light that is as old as…

The stars are so old. Older than any elf. Tauriel is still considered young among her people, and yet—yet she is already far older than any dwarf will ever live to be. Tauriel can feel dread like ice laying its claws on her skin, trying to break through. She kneels carefully on the mirrored floor, neck aching from the low ceiling.

How long is a dwarf's life? Two centuries, maybe three? How long those ten months felt to her, but in a decade's time they will have melted small in memory. When does a century begin to seem like the blink of an eye? In a few hundred years, a thousand?

She is not sure how long she stands there, trying not to think of death. But eventually, she is jolted from her thoughts by the sound of her name drifting up through the empty air.

"Tauriel?" A second time. She shakes herself, twisting to look down. Her eyes need but a moment to adjust to the dark again, and then she sees who it is. Sees the glint of a dwarven crown.

"Hello," she calls down for lack of anything else to say. Thorin looks up at her, his brows drawn into a slight frown. Her robes dangle from his hand.

"Did you _climb_ up there?" he asks eventually, when the silence between them has grown thick.

"Very astutely observed, your Highness."

"…Why?"

"I wanted to see the stars."

He looks down and Tauriel thinks she can see his throat work. What on earth is he doing here, on his own? She had assumed that everyone would remain at the feast for hours yet, as Kíli had said. Then, Thorin's head lifts again.

"There—there's a balcony not far from here."

Tauriel hesitates only briefly. The climb down is not easier, but she jumps the last few yards, landing on her feet next to the statue. Thorin hands her her robe, with a strangely shy look in his eyes. She slips it hastily over her shoulders for he is already turning away and making his way up the stairs.

As she follows him up the next flight and then into a corridor that branches off towards the mountain’s surface, silence hangs between them like a thick fog. She is tempted to make a comment on his ability to find the way, if only to get a reaction from him. But even through his fur-lined cloak she can see the tension in his shoulders, and thus refrains from it. Eventually they reach a long hall that opens up to the night, thick pillars of green-grey stone supporting the ceiling that looms far above them, and beyond them lies a balcony.

The soft white light of moon and stars bathes everything in a thin, almost unearthly glow. Close to the horizon, the night is blue and above that, black where the stars begin. A deep sigh escapes Tauriel, her body releasing a tension she had not known it held. She steps close to the balustrade, resting her hands on the stone and her body against it.

Down below she can see the slopes of the mountain, speckled with the occasional point of firelight. A gentle wind stirs the blissfully cool air. Thorin’s clothes rustle as he too steps close to the balustrade, and when she turns to him he is looking out over the dark plains.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, “for showing me. It’s beautiful here.”

 _You’re beautiful_ , she doesn’t say, even though she thinks it. The way the starlight catches in his hair, and how delicately it frames the lines of his face is a lovely sight.

“You’re welcome,” Thorin says very quietly, with but a quick glance in her direction. That strange shyness is stealing back into his eyes, and in the muted colours of night Tauriel cannot be sure but it seems very much like his cheeks are growing ruddy the longer she watches him. It still vexes her, what he was doing away from the feast in the first place…

"Why aren't you at the feast? I'd imagine the absence of the king himself would be noticed."

He snorts slightly. "Not with how drunken everyone is by now."

"Thorin… _why_ are you not at the feast?"

After a long silence, he gets out, "I—I was… I was looking for you," like each word costs him dearly to admit. They have something hot and _intent_ waken at the base of Tauriel's spine.

"…Why?"

He huffs and crosses his arms in front of his chest, gaze cast down. "You're like a damn child," he mutters, "always asking why—"

"You came _looking for me_ ," Tauriel says with insistence, unwilling to let herself be deterred. "Even after—after… yesterday. Why?"

He turns away from the balustrade but will not meet her eyes. Now she is sure that there is redness in his face, although if it stems from anger or embarrassment or something else she cannot tell.

“I don’t owe you an explanation,” he says, “I’m the—”

“You’re the king, I know.” She takes a step towards him, but not enough to crowd him against the balustrade. Still, she can see how his gaze darts, like a trapped animal looking for an escape – and on an impulse, she squats down so their eyes are of a height.

“I’d like to know anyway,” she says gently. “Thorin, I _know_ what you look like when you fall apart. You don’t have to… to hide from me, or feel shame—”

“You act like it’s so easy!” Thorin spits and finally, finally he meets her eyes again, and—

He is terrified.

It is not the blank panic from yesterday that fills his eyes, but fear, pained and _hopeless_ and it twists Tauriel’s insides into knots to see it.

“It’s not,” she whispers, “do you think I don’t know that? I told you, how my people think of me for the things I want—”

“You’re not their _king_ ,” he snarls and suddenly he is right in front of her, his hands curled into fists. They are trembling. She wants to touch him, to comfort him somehow, but she does not dare to.

“Do you want me to leave?” she asks, her voice unsteady. Thorin’s eyes go wide.

"N-no," he whispers, shudders as though he is freezing. "Stay."

Tauriel bites her lip, looking down at her hands. She remembers vividly how it had felt to twist her fingers into his hair, how his entire body had locked up in response. How much she had desired him in that moment, enough to throw all caution to the wind. She cards her fingers through her own hair. The familiar glow of starlight is no comfort to her now.

"Then what do you want, Thorin?"

\--o--

Thorin feels as though there is a storm raging inside his chest and it is tearing him apart.

 _What do you want_ , she asks him, and he cannot, he _cannot_ say it. His throat is dry and cracked and mere breathing chafes him. He wants—

_I want you. I want you, I want you and it scares me to death—_

He wants to not be afraid of his own mind, of the desires lurking there; he wants not to have shame eating him up like a monster that has made a home in his belly; he wants—

Tauriel is close enough to kiss. He thinks of her hands tilting his face up for her to kiss, the heat of her mouth. Of her hands, undressing him and spreading him out on her bed, if she would look at him the way she looked up at the stars…

There is a storm in him and inside it lie the memory of the councilroom, the thought of Tauriel’s body between his opened legs, and the heavy, heavy weight of his crown. He cannot say it.

His head drops, eyes clenched shut. He wants to scream with it and even in that his voice fails him.

“Thorin, I’m not—” Tauriel says, then breaks off. Her eyes are closed when he looks at her again, and she is breathing deeply. When she opens them again… She is not smiling, but the shape of her mouth and her eyes and the way she looks at him – it makes Thorin’s stomach flip, and it is not with fear.

Her hands are moving. Slowly, she lays them on either side of his head, on his crown. It lifts easily from his head, easier than he thought it would. He lets her take it.

Then she braces her elbows on her knees and holds the crown in a lax grip between her legs, like it is a ringlet of flowers or leather, and not the most important sign of kingship. Now she is smiling, small and soft, and it is as though the storm in Thorin is growing. He can scarcely breathe.

"I'm not asking the king," she whispers. "I'm asking you."

He makes a noise, he thinks. Like the sigh of someone who has shed a heavy weight, whose lungs can finally draw enough air again. A helpless little thing.

The storm fades with that breath and with it Thorin Oakenshield, King under the Mountain.

“I want you,” slips from him, nigh inaudible. He wants to hide his face in his hands like a guilty child; he knows he can never take this back if he lets it escape – but his mouth does not obey him. From between his fingers and out into the night steal the words, damning and over and over, like they tread a path that becomes easier to walk with every time – “I want you, I want you to take me to bed, please take me to bed,” – and then Tauriel’s body tips forward so she is kneeling and the crown clatters to the ground and it is like the sun has risen on her face so bright and hungry is her smile and Thorin’s knees grow weak.

Her hands rise as though she means to touch him but she hesitates, caught in mid-air until she drops them with a breath.

“I want to kiss you so much,” she whispers, “can I—” and Thorin’s head hitches forward without thought, and he slants his mouth against hers.

Tauriel’s curled fingers alight on the side of his face in a light caress. There is something ruthlessly tender in the way she kisses him, something that is calm and sweet where Thorin fumbles and stammers, but no less hungry.

He is trembling again, but this time it is eagerness, and it fills his veins with liquid heat.

“I want you to take me to bed,” he breathes once more, against Tauriel’s lips. She _shivers_ , and gooseflesh breaks out on his skin in turn.

“I will,” she whispers. “Thorin, you know I want to have you—I want to spear you. Do you want that?”

Abruptly his throat closes up, ice in his stomach – the last gasp of a king’s dignity trying to save him from his own cravings, but he is not… He is no one’s king, not now. His knees are weak and fear still sits at the bottom of his stomach like lead and he wants for Tauriel to take him with such a fierceness that he _aches_.

“Y-yes,” he gets out. “Yes, I want that…”


	5. Starlight Below Skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will wonders never cease, here I am with an update; I just hope anyone's still up for reading this
> 
> (And once again, content warning to be on the safe side: panic attack, described from the pov of the person having it)

The door to Tauriel's accommodations closes behind them with a soft click. Just as softly, she slides the bolt into place, but to Thorin the sounds seem like a hammer striking stone. Tauriel strokes her hand over his shoulder in passing, her fingertips catching on the line of his throat. That touch, too, feels monumental compared to the reality of it: like a brand on his skin. Her glance back at him is as a hook that curls under his ribs and reels him forward. She still carries his—the crown, and she places it upon a low table in the foyer. Not carelessly, but it does end up upside-down.

Thorin gets caught staring at it. The crown is a ring of metal, decorated with the angular shapes of ravens, nothing more than… It is made from precious ores, to be sure, gold and silver and hints of mithril, and expertly crafted, the piece of pride of a master goldsmith, but…

It is a thing. An object like an expensive necklace or a ring. The way Tauriel treats it, it seems—not worthless, but still only a thing. It means nothing special to her.

Something in Thorin rears up in indignation at the realisation, something that could be considered noble, and proud, and kingly.

_…not asking the king, I'm asking you._

He is not king, not now. He does not _have_ _to be_ the king, now.

Still he crosses the foyer and sets the crown right-side up, if only to calm the whispers in his mind that he has done his best to smother since he spilled his desires out into the night on the balcony. When he looks up, he finds that Tauriel is watching him from the entrance to what has to be her bed chamber. She is leaning against the green marble wall, her arms loosely crossed in front of her, one leg cocked in relaxation under her.

It takes Thorin a moment to realise that the way she is looking at him is— _appreciative_. Unabashedly so. His heart stutters a little, and he can feels his face flush warm with blood.

"I closed the balcony doors," she says. "No need to worry about any noise escaping."

"I wasn't—I'm not," Thorin says, and swallows when he hears how raspy he already sounds. Tauriel's smile widens into a grin, and she shoves off of the wall and half-turns towards the hallway.

"Are you coming, then? Or do you need more time?"

Not quite trusting his voice, Thorin shakes his head and takes a step forward, towards her – and another, and another, following her as she walks down the hallway and into her bed chamber. The room has a high ceiling like the rest of the apartment, and the furniture is human-sized. Well, what dwarves consider to be human-sized. The bed and the armoire are far too tall to be used comfortably by a dwarf, but they are still not as high as he remembers them being in Laketown, or in Rivendell.

Tauriel should not look so tall, even among these surroundings.

When she reaches the bed, she shrugs off the outer layer of her robes and lays it aside, then seats herself on the edge of the bed with both hands braced on the mattress, one leg stretched out and the other slung beneath it. The searching heat has not left her eyes.

Abruptly Thorin realises how very _different_ it all is, and he does not know what he expected, but what he knows is—

(A nightworker, her clothes poor but tidy, her smile pleasant and business-like. A business transaction in rented rooms. The fear that came with the second time, a different woman, and still. Taken apart, gentled undone. The human woman, a trade. Her face bare and sharp, how long her hands were. How her voice cracked when he shook underneath her.)

—he has never had this done to him by a woman who knew him. A woman who knew what his birthright was. A woman he did not pay.

But Tauriel knows him. She knows what his crown means. And she does not want coin, she just wants—

When she holds out one hand to him and calls his name, he nearly trips into her arms.

She laughs in surprise, but catches him easily, her arms warm and strong around his waist. It feels _good_ ; better than he thought it would, someone else's strength and heat all along his body, even through several layers of clothes. Like he is being held—Thorin forces himself to straighten up, despite the urge to sag further against Tauriel. And just like that, she lets him go and draws back until there are several inches of air between their chests.

"We've got time," she murmurs. "You don't have to hurry."

Thorin swallows. His hands twitch at his sides with how much he wants her touch back, wants more than the ghostly pressure of her knees against his thighs.

"Can I kiss you?" she asks, head tilting.

"You don't—don't have to keep asking," he manages.

"Maybe I like hearing the confirmation."

"…You didn't ask yesterday." Immediately Thorin wishes he had not said it, does not know why he even did, for Tauriel's expression grows sombre, and he hates to remember… _that_.

"That didn't lead anywhere good, did it," Tauriel says, not unkindly. She hesitates briefly. "I'm sorry I touched you without permission; I shouldn't have.  I'm sorry I hurt you."

Thorin looks away, his throat growing dry.

"You didn't hurt me."

"…I didn't?"

"No, I—" _I was reckless, I was desperate. I'd have let you—_

He clenches his eyes shut and breathes noisily, deeply. He does not want to remember; the memory rises far too easily, stains his mind like a bloody shroud. The phantom sensations of her hands, her body on top of his, the stone table under him…

"Thorin." Fingertips alight on his wrist, soft. His head nearly snaps up, meets her eyes. He cannot read her expression – is it pity? Concern? But she is touching him, barely, and he takes her hand before she can withdraw it again.

"Do you want me to kiss you again?"

"Y-yes," he mumbles, "you can touch me, too. Please."

Tauriel smiles, wide, a bright flash of teeth against her dark skin. She settles both her hands on his hips, fingers splayed wide.

"Like this?"

"Like—more, like before…"

"You can touch me too, you know."

She tugs, and he pushes, and then there is no space left between them, his arms round her shoulders, hers curled over his back. Thorin tilts his head, angling wordlessly for a kiss. Tauriel's mouth drags hotly along his cheek.

Then that heat descends upon him, and Thorin _melts_ under it. Before, she was barely touching him and that kiss left him dizzy nonetheless; now, wrapped around each other as they are, it feels like the pit of yearning inside him opens up, plunges deeper than he thought himself capable. His skin prickles, every touch sparking heat under it. Eager noises climb from his throat, noises he has no hope of stopping. The way Tauriel kisses him is overwhelming, deep and hungry, and it leaves him gasping into her mouth, desperate to hold on, like a ship caught in storm.

When she nudges at his fur-lined cloak, half a question on her lips, he is already trying to wriggle free of it, although without letting go of her, the task proves difficult. He curses under his breath but they manage to disentangle themselves long enough to push the garment from his shoulders and let it pool on the floor.

His belt takes the same path: fumbling hands, breathed curses, a chuckle from Tauriel; as does his coat, the vest of decorative mail, the soft cloth jerkin underneath it. His boots, a louder curse, and a _thud_ as he kicks them off; his trousers swiftly slipped down his legs by her hands, and left to crumple on the floor with the rest of his clothes. Then Tauriel's fingers curl in the fine linen of his undershirt, and lift, and pull, and suddenly there is only night air between his skin and her hands.

Gooseflesh breaks out on Thorin's skin, sweeps from his neck downwards on a shiver. He knows it has nothing to do with the temperature of the air – the room is pleasantly warm, like all living quarters in the palace complex – and everything to do with the fact that he is nigh naked, and Tauriel is looking at him.

He can practically feel her gaze moving over the planes of his body, lingering over scars, the path it takes it takes along curves of muscle and bone. He thinks he starts to tremble under it, the weight of that quiet hunger, the way it feels like she is reaching inside him down to his bones and setting him alight.

She finally throws his undershirt aside and reaches out again, draws him close once more and Thorin wants to whine as her hands sweep down the same curves her eyes followed, the touch unbearably light. He grips her shoulders, rasps _yes_ and _please_ , two small words that are quick to set free, now, fallen from his mouth before his mind can hold them back. Tauriel nuzzles into his neck, nips at the tendons of his throat, thumbs at his nipples until they peak, and in that moment it is so _easy_ to cling to her, to return her kisses, the way her mouth scorches his neck, in kind. Her fingertips brush along his stomach, further and further, until they hook into the fabric of his smallclothes.

"Yes," he whispers, and she loosens the folds of cloth until they would slip down his thighs with but a push if it weren't for—

Thorin moans helplessly when Tauriel cups his firming cock through the smallclothes before she drags them down, and then proceeds to splay one hand wide over his buttock, squeezing a little. The pressure has another small noise escaping him, and his hips jerk into it.

He is naked and as good as in her bed, and the thought that she could _ruin_ him if she only wanted to crashes over him. She could—but it drowns just as quickly when she puts both her hands on his arse and tugs him forward like that, until his cock is pressed to the fabric of her dress, doubtlessly soiling it.

"Wish I had dozen hands," she murmurs into his ear. "I want to touch you _everywhere_."

"Tauriel," he breathes and twists to kiss her, messy and hungry. Her breathing grows harsher, and eventually she pushes him away, and gets up to fiddle with the lacings of her dress.

"Come, up with you," she tells him while she strips, adding her own clothes to the piles of his that already litter the floor by the bed. If his heart was not beating hard enough to rattle his ribcage, anticipation boiling in him, Thorin would be downright ashamed of how eagerly he scrambles onto the bed, turning around again just in time to see her shed the last of her underclothes.

She really does not look a thing like a dwarf, it occurs to him; she is too tall, with too little hair, too thin – although not nearly as spindly as he expected. As she follows him, her knee denting the mattress, he can see the muscles moving beneath her skin, sleek and strong like a cat. She moves with a predator's grace, slinking towards him, and all the breath just goes out of him. With a shudder, his arms slide out from under him and he sinks on his back, his legs falling open without conscious thought to make space for her.

Then she is above him, seeming huge enough to block out the sun. The heat of her body is like a physical thing, surging down on his skin in waves, makes him arch up and reach out because he wants to get closer, wants skin on skin. Tauriel sways down, and down, slow, watching him intently as she does it and Thorin breath catches in his chest like a sob, and tears from his throat in the shape of her name when she finally covers him. He trembles, his hands fluttering over her sides, unable to settle and hold on because it is too much, too much sensation at once but he cannot bear to let go either. So he clenches his eyes shut and breathes, feels how her ribcage expands with every breath, how it pushes against his, how sweat starts to gather in the dip of his hips, where Tauriel's belly touches him, how her lips, wet from kissing, brush over his.

"Are you… are you all right?" she asks. Thorin nods with effort and eventually manages to keep his hands from trembling, and folds them over her back.

"Y-yes," he says, "yes, don't stop…" He can feel Tauriel's lips stretch into a smile.

"It's been a while, hasn't it," she says softly, and kisses his cheek, the corner of his mouth, the edge of his jaw. Thorin sighs out another _yes_ and stretches blindly for another kiss. It is slower this time, sweeter, than before. Tauriel strokes in circles along his flank, drawing low and lower; under his palms, the muscle and blades of bone in her back shift with the movement. Her touch leaves a simmering heat in its wake that flows steadily to his centre, carries hot blood down to his cock. He lifts and hooks his leg over her hip so she may reach his thigh just as Tauriel shifts and their legs tangle, his cock dragging against her stomach and her cunt sliding wetly over his thigh. They both make noise at the slick drag, and Tauriel huffs out a moan that is half a laugh. She repeats the movement with deliberation this time and kisses Thorin's choppy sigh right from his mouth. Her hand strokes back down his thigh again, wraps over his buttock, her fingers nudging into the cleft of his arse.

Thorin jolts when the tips of her fingers brush over his hole, sparks blooming under his skin. He squirms, hungry for another touch. The squirming motion forces his thighs to open further around Tauriel… That has his cock jump with excitement. Has memories, whispers, rear up from the back of his mind, has them mix in with the roar of his racing heart, that he should not want this, least of all _enjoy_ it—

"Thorin…" Tauriel's voice has dropped low, rough around the edges; it sweeps over him like something tidal, makes his hair stand on end with blissful shudders. It quiets the whispers and he clings to her, does not want to lose that feeling of teetering on the edge of overwhelmed—

"Thorin, how long has it been?"

"I don't know," he says, shaking his head, "I don't know, years," because it is too quiet now, his heart is pounding but it is not loud enough to drown out the whispers, "Not since Azanulbizar, please, just—"

" _What_?"

Suddenly Tauriel is heavy on top of him, like she had been keeping her weight off of him until now; it forces the air from his lungs and has his eyes fly open. She is staring down at him, her expression caught between pain, and shock, and pity—he thinks, he cannot tell, no one has ever—he cannot remember that anyone had ever looked at him like that.

"That's almost a century," she says quietly. Her weight lifts off of him again, but it does not make it easier to breathe. There is a lump growing fast in Thorin's throat and he swallows uselessly around it, averting his eyes. Her hand is still—her fingertips…

 _Almost a century of not acting like a needy beggar_ , the whispers hiss. His hands clench on Tauriel's back and he clenches his eyes shut again. He is not king, not now, he can—

Tauriel drops a kiss on his collarbone, her loose hair brushing his neck.

“It’s all right,” she whispers. “Forget I asked. Do you want my fingers now?" They are already moving, rubbing him gently between his buttocks, teasing. Thorin whimpers, biting his lips. He can want this, now. He is _allowed_ to have this.

"Please," he grits out, " _please_ , yes."

Another kiss, below his jaw. A murmured, "I'll be right back," and then her heat and weight disappears.

The only relief is that he does not have to meet her eyes. They always seem dark like the night sky, dark enough to drown in, and he can never quite figure out what her expression means. But the rest – it is too quiet. Too cold. There is nothing to distract him from what is lurking just beneath his desire, overwhelming as it is, from what reaches so painfully easy to the surface now.

He should… he should not want this, any of it.

He is the damned _king_ , how could he have thought that simply casting off his crown changed any of that? He could have thrown it into the vats of the forges and he would still be king, nothing so simple as the presence of a piece of metal could change that, it was in his _blood_ —

But so was the heat that was burning at the base of his spine now, was it not? The heat between his legs, filling his belly with aching desire, the noises a mere touch there could wring from him… Was it not?

_NO don't lie to yourself you were WEAK you still are couldn't forget WOULD NOT forget_

"Thorin?" Tauriel is scooting up on the bed again; she drops a flask of oil and a shapeless leather pouch on the mattress next to him. Concern is written plain on her face and Thorin feels like he has become nothing but _want_.

_There's time still leave now Leave LEAVE_

And maybe he _is_ too weak to resist this, to not yearn for it, but he has strength enough to reach out.

"Is everything all right? You look—"

"No, _no_ , I need—"

_Don't SAY it No coming back from this Not if you say it You can't YOU CAN'T_

He drags Tauriel down to his mouth, kisses her sloppy and desperate, needy, groans when she clutches him right back. "I need you—"

_NonononoNO don't SAY it_

"Tauriel, I-I—"

_Shut up SHUT UP_

"I need you inside, inside me," he gasps out. "I want you inside me, now, _please_." His breath rattles out of him in ragged pants. He doesn’t dare open his eyes to face her now, but he does not have to – she returns to kiss him, her tongue pushing inside his mouth.

It is a heady kiss, hungry.

"We'll get there," Tauriel whispers, her voice rolling from her deep and gravelly, like something old from even older forests, "We'll get there," and nudges him down again. "Lie back for me?"

The way she looks at him as he complies has something very small and vulnerable leap inside his chest. Not fear but—he cannot tell, but it frightens him nonetheless, and he hastily turns over onto his belly to hide his face in his arms. It is easier to breathe this way, he finds. The whispers are oddly silent, as though they—as though they have realised he is beyond saving. They have left a cloying emptiness behind, but it is not enough to stem his desire, far from it.

The sounds of Tauriel handling the flask of oil stoke it even further, make him grind his hips down, once, twice, loving how the sheets chafe against his cock. There is the small _pop_ of the stopper being removed, then slick noises, oil being poured, and then—silence.

Thorin's throat goes dry.

"Are you sure you want it like this?" she asks.

"Yes," he rasps, half-muffled into the sheets.

Her voice drifts closer. "I'll touch you now, all right?"

Desperately, he nods and bites out another _Yes_. His fists clench in the bedding in anticipation, and he only realises that he has tilted his hips upwards when it is already done, his spine arching. Wanton. Not the way a—

Thorin ignores it, focusing instead on how the mattress shifts beneath him with Tauriel's moving weight, how she moves from behind him to his side, next to his legs.

The first touch is dry-fingered, on the inside of his knee. It slides up his inner thigh, then her palm covers his buttock and spreads him open. He makes a low noise, barely stifles it. The second touch is the same as the first, except her fingers are oil-slick; starting at the knee and along his thigh, then into the cleft of his arse, rubbing briefly over his hole. Then, down to play with his stones, to tug and squeeze them. This time his noise is almost a whimper, and he tries to raise his hips while simultaneously spreading his legs further, an attempt that only results in aching hamstrings and back.

"Patience," Tauriel murmurs, stroking over the curve of his arse – except she sounds anything but patient, and within seconds she is nudging the slick tip of a finger inside him. Slowly, that finger slides deeper, and deeper, all the while Tauriel's other hand is stroking over his lower back, his buttocks, his thigh. The sensation races up Thorin's spine; he gasps wetly, fingers clutching at the sheets. He does not know how he'll stand any more of it, he can scarcely breathe just with this—and then she crooks her finger downwards inside him, drags it out, and he _keens_.

He had forgotten—

"Does that feel good?"

How could he have forgotten—

“Ah—yes, yes, _oh_ …"

How could he have forgotten just how utterly being touched like this made him come undone?

Thorin shoves himself up on his elbows, pushing back against her. Every gentle thrust, every crook and curl down into that spot has him mewling, helplessly noisy. There are precious few seconds reprieve where he can almost think straight, when Tauriel lets up on him to climb between his legs.

Then her hands are back, and she asks if he wants more, perhaps—perhaps he begs for more, it does not matter, all that matters is that he gets more, two, three fingers, spreading him open and making him lose his mind to pleasure.

The cleft of his arse is sopping wet with oil, it is smeared over his inner thighs and stones, and drips down his shaft, which is swollen fat and aching with blood, and drooling on the sheets below. He prays that she does not touch it, for it would likely take no more than one touch to send him over the edge, and he does not want this to be over, not yet, _not yet_.

"Another one?" Tauriel's voice is ragged, breathless. A garbled _Please_ makes it past Thorin's lips, and she gives him what he needs. The stretch burns this time, but still it fills him up until he could cry from it. He arches his back for it like a cat in heat, mewls for it, and there is nothing left in him to care for how base that is. The only thing that could feel better than this…

"Ta-Tauriel, please—" It should not be this hard to string a sentence together, but his tongue is sluggish, his breath stolen by moans and whimpers, and he can only hope that something comprehensible makes it through.

And then, he is empty. The sudden lack of stimulation leaves him panting. Every sensation is magnified; the strain in his shoulders from the way his head has been hanging low, his forehead resting on the bed, the texture of the sheets. The way they brush against his skin in miniscule movements as he breathes, the stickiness of the oil on his skin. The sound of Tauriel's breathing, of her moving behind him.

Thorin makes a low, pained noise of need. _Now_ , he prays, _now, now nownownow_ —

"I'm here, Thorin."

Hands, long, elven fingers. Lips at the base of his spine. Words mouthed into his skin – "I'm here, I'm here," – climbing along his back. High, higher, and with it rises her heat above him. She covers him, fits herself over the arch of his back; he fits into the curve of her body like something molten. Like liquid metal, burning white, melding together, like he could not escape even if he wanted to. Liquid, wet heat, too is the cock nudging his thighs. Feels as thick as his own, oiled and hard and impossibly warm, and makes him choke on wanting it; she is touching him, feels as though she is touching him _everywhere_ , a hundred hands that hold him close and hold him fast, he can barely breathe around his frantic heartbeat, he could not escape even if he wanted to makes him choke on wanting it makes him choke he can barely breathe he cannot breathe hecannot _breathe_ —

Cold.

Warmth and weight, gone. No body atop his, no heat.

The air burning, freezing, all the way down to his lungs.

He sucks in deep, shattered breaths. Less shattered, after a while. He feels soft linen underneath him, moist with oil at his knees. There is something—someone, the heat of someone's body beside him. The sound of breathing, it is not his own. Someone big, the mattress is skewed with weight, someone…

Tauriel. She says his name, quietly and cautiously, and Thorin shudders, curling in on himself. He cannot—he needs just a moment, one moment more to become himself again. At last his body no longer betrays him, and he is able to move, to sit up and raise his head to meet her eyes.

"Thorin…"

"It's nothing," he mutters, turning away. "I'm fine, just—just continue."

She laughs, the sound hollow. "You're a _miserable_ liar," she says and catches his elbow as he moves to turn on his belly again. The touch nearly makes him flinch, heart pounding rabbit-quick in his chest, and he does not manage to hide it.

Her expression shutters, her touch gentles before drawing away. He stares at her, his throat working. The sweat on his skin is cold, gooseflesh rising among jerky shivers on his arms and legs, his lungs burn and ache, his cock lies half-limp against his thigh, sticky with oil and fluid, and Thorin feels _sick_ with want.

"Take me," he breathes, "just take me."

Tauriel's mouth twists into a shape that, in the right light, would resemble a smile.

"You look like you'd keel over if I touched you now. You're _shaking_ ," she adds, quietly. Thorin feels bitterness slither down his throat at that and spread through his veins like poison, but he cannot—he _is_ shaking. But still, he wants—he _needs_ …

He rises up on unsteady knees, reaching out for her. He tries fruitlessly to keep his touch light, not to tumble against her, but it is in vain.

"Please," he gets out just as she catches him, "I want you, I need—"

 _—I need you, I need it_ now _, I can't ask for this again tomorrow, I_ can't _—_

A high breath shudders from her, and she tilts her head until her nose slides against his, breaths mingling.

"I want you, too," she whispers. "And I want you to want me, and I want you to enjoy this. But right now I'm only sure of one of those things."

He blinks. For what did she think all his—his _begging_ and moaning was, to what purpose if not that he simply could not stop himself?

"Of _what_?"

"That I want you. And I keep—" She sighs and rubs at her cheek with her clean hand. "Yesterday, and just now, I hurt you and I don't—I don't know why, nor how. I'm not clairvoyant, I need you to tell me what I did—"

"I told you, you didn't _do_ anything to me."

"That wasn't _nothing_! If it wasn't my actions that caused it, what was it?"

"It's not—I don't—what do you want to hear? That I'm so—so _desperate_ for this that it _breaks_ me?"

Thorin can hear how his own voice cracks around the words, but Tauriel's expression does not change. He is not sure if that makes the admission worse or not, and already it takes everything in him not to look away.

"…Did you know you would react like this?"

He swallows, eyes closing briefly, and shakes his head. Had he known… Had he known, he likely would have made the same decisions.

Tauriel is silent for long moments, and through them all she watches him, like she intends to uncover even more of him. It is as disconcerting as it is rousing, and the sickened desire in Thorin's belly only grows with each passing second.

At last she slowly reaches up to cup his cheek in her hand, her palm warm and gentle.

"Let's try something a little different, shall we?"

She lets him go and moves towards the headboard, piling the pillows high against it; then she reclines into them and holds out her hand to him with a small smile.

"Come here?"

Trying to walk on the bed is a venture doomed to fail with his legs as unsteady as they are at the moment, so Thorin scoots and crawls until he reaches her. Tauriel holds her arm open for him to lie down awkwardly against her side. He can feel a brief press of lips against his forehead, then Tauriel's murmur of, "Close your eyes, and just breathe for a while. I'm not going anywhere." Thorin wants to protest again, that he is not in need of coddling like a wailing babe, but her thumb starts to draw circles on his shoulders, and he relaxes into the half embrace despite himself.

With his eyes closed, sounds and touches grow in clarity: the steady rise and fall of Tauriel's ribcage beneath his cheek, the soft whistling noise of her breath, the sweat-sticky heat of her body lying against his, the cool sheets twisted and crumpled under them; and far further the gentle groaning and creaking of a mountain filled with a living kingdom.

He does not know how long they lie there, only that eventually his eyes drift open again, and he realises the sickness in his belly has dissipated to a shadow of itself. He glances down the line of Tauriel's body, over the curve of her breasts and belly to her strong thighs. One of her legs is drawn up, the other sprawled out, her entire posture relaxed and at ease. She is still wearing her harness, and in the vee of her thighs, her wooden cock juts up at a strange angle, shining slick. To Thorin's surprise the sight does not flood him with desire – instead, it comes slower, hesitant. But nonetheless, it comes, and causes his hips to twitch, rubbing his softened cock on the skin above Tauriel's hip.

"Feeling better, are we?" she asks, a laugh in her voice. Her hand, which had been moving continuously over his shoulder, stops, then strokes down his spine. The touch chases a small shiver after it, and Thorin braces himself on his elbow to meet her eyes.

"Do you intend to spend the rest of the night like this?" he asks, voice still raw.

"No. But I think," she says, taking his hand that has been resting against her waist, and placing it low on her belly, "that it would be easier if you sat in my lap."

Thorin swallows. Heat and lust are returning to him quicker now, and right behind them follows – not shame, perhaps, but the thought that she would see his face while she speared him, and would know precisely the extent to which she ruined him… That thought lets his heart beat fast and frantic, and he cannot tell if it is for fear or desire.

"…Unless you'd rather not—"

"No," he whispers instantly, tongue nearly tripping over itself. "I—I want it."

Tauriel's expression softens and she tilts her head to kiss him, slow and cautious at first, then deeper when Thorin pushes closer. He struggles onto his knees and together they manage, quite clumsily, to slide one of his legs across her torso and thus situate him on Tauriel's stomach.

The sticky touch of her oiled fingers trails over his thigh and to his hip, light as a feather.

"Comfortable?" she asks, one corner of her mouth twisting up, although she does not sound nearly as playful as she looks. At first, Thorin does not know whether to nod or shake his head; he is far from relaxed, and quite a few muscles in his back still are knotted and tense, but at the same time… it feels good to be this close to Tauriel, the light touch of her hands, the warmth of her body seeping into his and easing his tension, the strength he can feel in her sleek muscles.

"Yes," he whispers and reaches for her mouth, hungry for another kiss. The muscles of her stomach tense beneath his thighs, her body shifting as she pushes herself up into a half-sitting position. The motion has Thorin slide down her stomach until her cock rides up between his buttocks, sudden and slick and huge, and it startles a noise from him.

Tauriel's eyes go wide and dark.

"Can you do that again?" she whispers against his lips. Her fingertips trace over his belly. Slowly, he tilts his hips back, grinds against her cock. Then again, with greater insistence, and a shivery thing of a breath feathers out from between her lips. She must feel it, he realises, where the base of the wooden shaft touches her. Or perhaps the thought is enough, Mahal knows _thoughts_ can be enough to for him to grow weak in the knees.

He rocks once more, watching Tauriel's face intently. If he does not let himself feel to sharply what that touch does to him, the skid-slip-slide of oiled wood between his buttocks, over the sensitive skin behind his stones, catching on his loosened hole, that trembling shower of sparks waking beneath his skin…

Tauriel makes a noise, a needy little growl. Her touch is light as silk, but her voice weighs heavy with lust.

"I want," she says, groans in frustration, her hips hitching, "Eru, I want to _fuck_ you, I want to—"

"How?" leaves Thorin on a shaky exhale. She shakes her head, bites her lip.

"Doesn't matter, you're the one who—"

"Tell me," Thorin says, filling the words with as much kingly command as he can muster. It is not much, but Tauriel looks at him, her expression torn.

"I want to put you on your back," she says finally, quiet, every word a searing kiss. "Grab your legs and bend you in half and spear you until you're screaming from how good it is. I thought about bending you over that stone slab in the council room, letting you beg me to fuck you. I'd do it slow, gentle, so deep you could feel me in your chest." Thorin's blood roars in his ears, feels as though his skin is set alight. He rocks again in her lap, almost on instinct, and feels his cock drag heavy with blood across her belly. Tauriel stares at him, unblinking, her pupils huge and black, the iris nothing but a thin ring of colour around that darkness.

"I want to watch you come apart while I'm buried inside you." She is so close, moving even closer now, her breath on his lips. Her cock is a brand against his skin. He has to look away, trembling with desire, and then her mouth alights on the shell of his ear, her voice a living thing that surges through his veins.

"If you want my cock, _take it._ "

**Author's Note:**

> You can find art and stuff from this 'verse on my tumblr, [here](http://apfelgranate.tumblr.com/tagged/bingo%20card%20shenanigans).
> 
> Comments are always welcome!


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